


Royal Chaos

by Millixi77



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Fantasy, I apologize., M/M, Magic, Omega Verse, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, This Story has a High Chance of Being OOC
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2019-07-21 02:17:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 36
Words: 122,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16150448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Millixi77/pseuds/Millixi77
Summary: Shuuichi Saihara was a bored, lower-ranked noble in an isolated province in the Kirigiri Kingdom. He wasn't expecting anything about that to change about that anytime soon. He didn't want that to change anytime soon.Fate had other ideas.When Prince Momota Kaito approaches him out of the blue during what was supposed to be a boring, run of the mill ball, things get far more complicated than he'd ever dreamed was possible.





	1. Chapter 1

**PROLOGUE**  

Shuuichi sighed, trying to hold back his nervous fidgeting. This was going to be fine. It was just another ball where he would be shown off to other potential suitors by his family. If he was lucky, he might be able to continue staying single. That was the most likely option. However, on the course to doing that, he would obviously have to attempt to interact with a number of... undesirable entities, more commonly known as Alphas who wouldn't keep their less than savory thoughts to themselves.

 

He was used to them by now, to an extent, but they still made his skin crawl. However, he'd learned to grin and bear it. It was just one of the mild inconveniences of being born to a noble family, especially one that was straddling the line between mid-tier and high tier. His mother would go on and on about how their fortunes would become even more bountiful if Shuuichi was able to marry an Alpha, or even a Beta of higher status than his family. His father didn't go to that extent, but he did talk about how favorable the current political climate was for them, and how they could potentially turn it to their favor if they made strategic decisions. He may not have explicitly said the word "marriage," but Shuuichi was not stupid.

 

Even his aunt and uncle, who never really bothered about those affairs, were subtly urging him to look out for any potential mates in the upcoming balls. He was also sure that the servants were having more than their fair share of gossip about this too.

 

Once when he was on his way to the library, he'd overheard the tail end of a conversation which seemed to be along those lines. What he'd actually heard was: "If he's waited this long to get a mate, who knows what the hell all those goddamn studded toys have done to him."

 

He'd turned bright pink and high tailed it to his room after that.

 

...so what if he had a few dildos? What were they going to do, make him wear a chastity belt? He liked a little variety in his toys, was all. And for all the ridges and bumps and hyper-realistic ones he had, at least they didn't have actual spikes. Miu had... Very esoteric tastes, to say the least.

 

He sighed, unwillingly coming back to the present. Whatever the case was, the reason he wasn't looking for a mate wasn't because he preferred artificial knot over physical, it was that he couldn't find someone he found interesting enough to actually have a romantic relationship with. Not one that would actually be emotionally satisfying, anyway.

 

The reason he couldn't tell them was because even in his head, it oozed selfishness. And, really, he couldn't stop himself from feeling a little irritated at that. Say he did marry one of those Alphas his family was not-so-subtly pushing him towards, taking the socially acceptable route. What would happen next? He'd get bred and start having pups within two years - adding the extra year in case the Alpha wasn't fully virile or had other business to attend to - and become the trophy Omega. Quiet, unobtrusive and subservient, and tied down forever with the problems of keeping stable in the dicey waters of high-ranked noble court. It was a nice thing to think about, being sincere with himself. He saw no issue with that life. In fact, he rather liked the idea of it. However... There was a problem with it.

 

It was calm and peaceful, and something everyone aspired to.

 

It went completely against what had been happening in the world for the last ten years.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ball started off a little slowly, but things quickly went West.

**CHAPTER ONE**

Shuuichi sighed, sitting down a little heavily on a particularly well-cushioned chair. Looking around the ball, he almost wished he hadn't come.

 

It was full of Enoshima supporters and detractors, which meant that where there wasn't inane discourse about the latest trends, there was heavy political discourse, obviously with the aim of causing controversy.

 

Junko Enoshima had become one of the most controversial figures in recent history, and it had been through her family line that the first waves of unsettling change had come to the world. The Enoshima Empire on its own was one of the most hated and feared empires in the world due to its fierce army which didn't hesitate to turn on any kingdom that couldn't pay its hefty tribute. Its leadership positions had been host to some of the most bloodthirsty and calculating rulers the world had ever seen, spanning over the three dynamics. That on its own had been one of the things which had upended the world's view on Omegas, but it had also brought fear with it. Their attacks weren't always pinned down to any normal strategy, and even their most random movements had a purpose behind them. They were a fierce warrior empire, and no one wanted to get on their bad side. No one with a brain, anyway.

 

However, that would be implying that around half of the courts were mad. 

 

Shuuichi wasn't about to rescind his statement, so he assumed that it held firmly.

 

That still meant that the other half of the courts were far too sane, seeing how they sucked up to the Enoshima Empire, paying more tribute than most other kingdoms could feasibly pay, and getting the chance to boast of unlimited protection of their own kingdoms and empires. They were right, of course. No one with half a brain would dare attack the Enoshima Empire, and they would be severely dissuaded from attacking places that the Empire clearly favored above the others.

 

However, the opposition to the Empire had a good argument for themselves. Sooner or later, this fear-mongering would either fail, causing one of the largest, most painful downfalls in history, or get out of hand, allowing the Empire to potentially annex the entire world. No one in their right mind would want that, for even the kingdoms and empires that boasted of protection knew that if either of those options happened, they would all be in a lot of trouble.

 

The Enoshima Empire was ruthless in its conquests, and they crushed every single little bit of opposition that tried to stand against their rulings. Whether it was a simple common sentiment or a religious belief system they deemed was gaining too many followers, it was crushed as quickly and brutally as possible. No one could talk openly about what had happened when the Ikusaba Kingdom had dared to defy the orders of the Enoshima Empire. The slaughter during that war had been horrifying, and their royal family had been forcefully bound to become the slaves of the Enoshima family line.

 

That misuse of magic and bonding had been horrifying to those who witnessed it. So horrifying that there had been a mass suicide afterward.

 

Shuuichi shuddered. Whatever the case, the most recent generation of the Enoshima-Ikusaba rulers struck terror into the hearts of many.

 

Junko Enoshima and Mukuro Ikusaba were sometimes referred to as the Twin Terrors, or the Twin Princesses of Hell. Coincidentally, they were born on the same day, although they were birthed from different mothers. However, they were almost uncannily similar in body type. No one who valued their life would voice their suspicion about the king's fidelity.

 

They were twins simply though their birth date, and they were dangerous. Junko Enoshima seemed like the typical ditzy socialite who was constantly bored and was only entertained by the newest trends and gossip at first sight. But it was quickly realized that the kind of boredom she felt wasn't like the simple boredom everyone else experienced, something that could be lifted by discovering something new to become interested in. Absolutely nothing could capture her attention for long, and the reason was because she had an uncanny ability to predict what the future would be.

 

That was apart from her magical abilities. She was the single most feared Alpha female in the entire known world, and for good reason.

 

She was obsessed with despair. Simple sadness, overwhelming agony, raw, miserable pain... she loved it, she craved it, and she took it upon herself to inflict her madness upon others, torturing people or using subtle manipulation to twist their minds, making them love despair as she did. The people she had under her direct control didn't just boast of her protection, they could boast that a lot of people found them nearly as horrifying as she.

 

She had brought entire kingdoms to their knees within ten years, by twisting the minds of upcoming heirs in ways that weren't fully known yet. Shuuichi shuddered. Part of him didn't want to know just what she had done to them, but another part of him, the inquisitive part that always thirsted for knowledge, was curious.

 

(Curiosity killed the cat, so he wasn't about to go actively searching for it. He wasn't that stupid, after all.)

 

How could people's personalities get changed so drastically, from friendly and amicable, to either sadistic or masochistic in the extreme, with insatiable cravings to spread despair, and some form of twisted love or admiration for Junko? He had no idea, and he was thankful he hadn't had any prior association with those affected. These kingdoms had been given the nickname “Servants of Despair” for good reason. Those lands had turned from beautiful and prosperous to horrific places of depravity. Alliances had been broken, even some courtship and marriages had been shaken by this, and the entire North Region was in an uproar.

 

The Enoshima Empire had managed to conquer most of the East and West Regions, while he lived in the South Region. The kingdoms here could not boast about any extra protection from Enoshima, but they paid their tribute as promptly as possible, managing to keep the Enoshima Empire satisfied enough that they were often overlooked.

 

He was thankful for it.

 

Guilt twisted deep within his gut. Yes, things could be said to be boring around this area, but he should be grateful for it. The kingdoms here were not taxed heavily, and he wasn't part of a royal family, which meant that he didn't have to get too close and personal to all of the political intrigues this was causing. Even if he married into royalty, he would be treated as an outsider and excluded from having to interact much with such affairs. His family was reasonably prosperous, and he himself had a good name and a healthy supply of magic to keep himself well-entertained.

 

The problem was that his magical specialty was... rather unusual, to say the least.

 

He was a living trouble detector, you could say. If he heard about any particular incident which occurred somewhere near him, something would drive him to look for the source of it. When he was a child, he was the person everyone looked to whenever a toy was broken or something was stolen when the teacher wasn't around. 

 

(Not like that had really done much personal good for him anyway. Children could be cruel, but that had been an experience all on its own.)

 

He couldn't find the culprit instantaneously, but some sort of force would guide him towards things which would clue him into who the culprit was. The catch was that while he was guided towards clues, he didn't understand them immediately. A good chunk of the time, he'd have to use logic to deduce how this related to the potential culprits, and part of the time, he would have to review and reassess his mental list of potential culprits.

 

He was a human trouble-finder in that sense, he guessed. It was a little interesting to experience, but ultimately an unnecessary talent. After all, if there were any real mysteries that needed to be solved, the Royal Investigators would be there to solve it. In comparison to their abilities, his was just a parlor trick that was used to settle small-scale disputes.

 

There was a reason he hardly used it, after all. 

 

He sighed, feeling restless. He wanted to stop thinking, if only for a little while. There was no need for him to ruminate on such things; his status was low enough that he would never have to deal with them. He was wasting his time. 

 

Looking around, it seemed like the discourse had either ended or died down, and people had dispersed, talking more freely. The wine had started going around, he assumed.

 

Almost as if he had summoned it with his mind, a waiter came around with a tray full of wine glasses. He took one, and took a short sip from it. He wasn't ready to fully inebriate himself, but he did want to stop himself from worrying.

 

He scanned the area around him idly, and he noticed what seemed to be a few growing clusters of people.

 

Ah, yes. One of the main vices of all Omegas was gossiping. He wondered if he might turn out to be one of the subjects of any gossip tonight. Who knew? The laws of gossip seemed to change at each party he went to. He looked down at himself. He'd decided to be a little extra while preparing for this particular ball.

 

He had chosen a light blue gown which had a slightly clingy corset, and his family cast proudly emblazoned on the front, and it quickly ran into a large, fluffy skirt with several layers, making a beautiful gradient that went from light blue to dark blue.

 

He ran his hands briefly over the dress, relishing the feel of the sheer fabric. He felt a small shot of a smile flicker over his face before he sighed again, closing his eyes.

 

He focused on the smells circulating around the large room. The floral smells of the Omegas were the first thing that hit his nose, unsurprisingly. He wouldn't be surprised if some of them had deliberately taken herbs to accentuate their scents, to attract potential mates. Either his parents weren't the only ones being needlessly forceful about it, or they were actually willing to go through with that. He didn't know, nor did he particularly care. 

 

He noticed the Betas next, their less prominent scents quickly filtering in. He could never really assign a trait to their scents; they seemed both varied and bland at the same time. He couldn't really explain it, but he assumed that it was because of the difference in dynamics that he couldn't pin it down. 

 

He felt himself swallow involuntarily as he finally noticed the earthy scents of the Alphas. They were stronger than all of the other scents, earthy scents that made him feel a little frisky. 

 

Then one scent in particular caught his attention. The person smelled like pine and lavender and something about that scent was making him feel a little needy. 

 

He definitely wasn't complaining. 

 

With a start, he realized the scent was coming closer. He quickly turned around, opening his eyes, and saw one of the most handsome Alphas he'd ever seen.

 

He looked like the typical fuckboy type, handsome and well-muscled. However, he didn't look arrogant, but instead looked a little curious, as well as a little confident. Looking at him a little closer, his clothes were definitely of a higher quality that Shuuichi's dress. A casual observer might not notice, but his mother had trained him well to spot such differences. He felt a little uncomfortable, and a little targeted. He straightened his posture a little more, but looking at the crest this Alpha had on his clothes made him feel a little insecure. He didn't fully recognize it, but judging from the quality of the guy's fabric, as well as the way he carried himself, Shuuichi felt like this would be a very, very interesting conversation.

 

He gulped as the guy walked closer, and really looked him over. He could feel his eyebrows raising in surprise. He had bright purple hair, which was tied back in a sleek ponytail, and, surprisingly, it didn't seem to be the result of hair dye. Shuuichi remembered his own blue hair and could barely suppress the urge to smack himself on the forehead. Using hair dye to make oneself have exotic hair colors was practically a thing of the past by now. Magic and genetics had combined in interesting ways over the past thirty years, and formerly unheard of hair colors were quickly becoming common.

 

Yet another thing that was unordinary about his generation.

 

He internally steeled himself, and stood up a little stiffly, placing his half-empty wine glass in the broad arm of the chair. He curtseyed, bowing forwards, recalling everything his mother had told him about proper etiquette, and stood up straight, careful to not look the man in the eyes. "Good evening," he said softly.

 

"You didn't have to do that, you know," the man said. Shuuichi dared to glance up at him from under his eyelashes.

 

"I was simply acting according to the standard rules of etiquette."

 

"I don't really like bothering with that kind of stuff," the man said. "...you can look up at me now." 

 

Shuuichi looked up, and his eyes instantly met the brightest purple eyes he'd ever seen. His heart hammered in his chest. He couldn't tell if it was from hormones or the fact that he had no idea who this guy was, yet found him so attractive so quickly. 

 

Probably both. 

 

"You're... really handsome." Oh, yes, of _course_ that was the first thing that fell from his mouth. He had to have heard that comment so many times that it was an empty phrase... what a great way to start a conversation.

 

The stranger chuckled. "It's fine, don't worry. I was just about to say that you're very beautiful."

 

And with that, his cheeks started heating up. "How about we introduce ourselves first, before complimenting each other?"

 

The stranger nodded, his eyes twinkling. "My name is Kaito Momota, heir to the throne of Luminary Kingdom, or, as it's better known, the Kingdom of the Stars."

 

Two things happened within that moment. The first thing that happened was a muted gasp passed around the room, making Shuuichi realize that the entire fucking room had been eavesdropping. The second thing was that his heart started working overtime.

 

The heir to the Kingdom of the Stars? That was one of the most successful kingdoms in the South Region, as well as a key part of the Hope Empire Alliance, the chief resistance of the Enoshima Empire.

 

And this man had chosen to talk to him out of all people at this ball? He was either getting lucky for the first time in his life, or about to experience something catastrophic. 

 

"I am Shuuichi Saihara, of the Saihara Clan, a noble family of the Kirigiri Kingdom," he said in a soft voice, gluing his eyes to the ground.

 

"The Saihara Clan? Not the same Saihara Clan with the esteemed Akise Saihara?"

 

...His uncle? 

 

"He is my father's twin brother," Shuuichi said carefully, looking up slowly. He was starting to feel a little wary about this. 

 

Kaito's eyes seemed to light up, and a surprised murmur ran throughout the room. Shuuichi thought that something like this could go either spectacularly well, or spectacularly badly. 

 

His stomach dropped, and he could suddenly feel the sheer weight of everyone's eyes on him. Something in the atmosphere had changed very quickly, and he could feel that neither optimism or pessimism would help in this situation. So instead, he hoped for luck. 

 

Failing that, he hoped that he would be able to run out of the ball quickly enough to avoid anything particularly awful happening. 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A very unexpected development occurs.

**CHAPTER TWO**

He stood as still as possible, and he could smell the apprehension in the air. 

 

Literally.

 

It was as if most people's scents had shifted to that sharp tone of anticipation, and everything was amplified to an extent. The less sharp, but just slightly musky scent of excitement was slightly mingled in, and he had to wonder just what the hell was going on and why he seemed to be out of the loop. 

 

Most importantly, the scent he could detect coming from Kaito? It was slightly calming, but in conjunction with the rest of the room, he felt on edge. 

 

What was all of this supposed to mean? 

 

"Your father is Ryosuke Saihara, correct?"

 

Added to that, when and how the hell had his family become so popular?

 

"And my mother is Rido Saihara," he said, completing the statement. "Why did you need to clarify this?" 

 

"You don't know?" 

 

"About what?" 

 

Mixed murmurs circulated around the room, and Shuuichi had to stop himself from actually turning his head to take in everyone's expression. 

 

Maybe he'd talked too much, or maybe he'd failed to pick up on any cues that would ordinarily clue him into what was really happening here. Whatever the case, he was starting to feel a little uneasy. 

 

Kaito, however, did not seem so surprised. "I guessed they might have kept this away from you... I think we need to discuss this someplace else. Can you follow me?" 

 

Shuuichi nodded curtly, and when Kaito turned around and began leaving the ballroom, he followed as closely as he could without looking too earnest. Etiquette lessons briefly flashed through his mind as he followed Kaito, and he felt his hands curl into fists as he put his hands behind his back. 

 

If this was something so serious that the discussion had to take place in a private room, something bad had happened to his family. Something very, very bad... 

 

He racked his brain, trying to recall if any of the servants had been acting suspicious lately. There were two potential things that could be have occurred. One, the servants knew what had happened and had been putting on an act to put him at ease, or two, their casual behavior was genuine. 

 

He bit down on his tongue. They had to have been pretending. He wasn't so sheltered that he would think that the servants wouldn't know anything that was happening in the region. Gossip spread fast among their kind, and he knew it. 

 

He managed to recall a few instances where activity mostly ceased as he either entered a room or passed through the hallways. They would stare at him... oddly, to say the least. He had usually been unnerved enough that he had left rather quickly afterward, but he could still recall their expressions. 

 

They had been sorrowful... and they had looked... pitying as well? 

 

Just what had his family done? And why hadn't he noticed this sooner? 

 

He did have a bad habit of ignoring things that he didn't care about and things that unsettled him, so that might have played a part in this… 

 

Fantastic. 

 

He saw that Kaito seemed to be slowing down a little, so he adjusted his speed, and started looking around. 

 

This was a wing of this particular palace he had never been in before. It was a popular venue for parties, but unlike most people his age, he hadn't been interested in exploring it. The parties were usually tiring enough. 

 

He now slightly regretted that earlier decision. 

 

Taking a single glance at the walls, he could see rich tapestries that would cost the worth of his clan thrice over, thoughtless of the ornate lamps keeping the place lit. 

 

He honestly didn't want to look at the carpet at this point, nor the ceiling. From the way the light sparkled, he knew there would be chandeliers that would pay his potential dowry ten times over, and he could feel his palms starting to sweat. 

 

Looking at the doors that lined this hallway was both awe-inspiring and panic-inducing. The occupation crystals didn't glow very brightly, indicating that most occupants were elsewhere in the castle. The doors were made out of thick, sturdy wood reinforced with strong defensive runes which were thinly masked as ornate carvings. 

 

Shuuichi shivered. He could feel the hairs on his arms standing on end; the amount of magical energy in this place was a lot more than he had ever experienced in his life, and he didn’t like it. 

 

(Magic just wasn't commonly used in his house. It… usually turned out to be for the best. His family had too many enemies to risk having one of their magical signatures traced back to them.) 

 

Kaito stopped at a door that had an occupation crystal swirling with pale lavender-colored energy. As soon as he touched the door handle it brightened to an intense amethyst, and Shuuichi wished that he could have had more time to properly appreciate it. Instead, he followed Kaito in, and stood anxiously, clasping his hands together even more tightly as Kaito locked the door. 

 

He was staring at the floor so intensely that he knew if his magic had manifested any differently, he would be glaring a hole through the carpet. 

 

Then he looked up at Kaito, knowing full well that his fear was plastered all over his face. 

 

"What did my family do?" 

 

Kaito looked a little nervous himself. "I think you might want to sit down before I tell you. They... did one of the bravest and foolish things that a clan can do in these times."

 

Shuuichi numbly moved to a chair, and immediately sank down into the large, soft cushions on it. The feeling of the comfortable plush texture felt less reassuring than it usually did. It felt less like a familiar sensation and more like his only protection from something deadly. He sank into the chair even more, his heartbeat racing. 

 

He looked over at Kaito, and he could tell that this was weighing down on him just as intensely, although he was obviously dealing with it better. 

 

For an Alpha, he seemed rather... gentle. And patient. In this situation, he didn't know if that was a blessing or a curse. 

 

"My family... They defied a royal order, didn't they?" He felt weak and slightly nauseous. 

 

"In a way."

 

That... was not promising. At all. 

 

"This was no ordinary royal order, was it?" 

 

Kaito didn't say anything. 

 

"It was an order from the Enoshima Empire, wasn't it?" The question came out sharper than he'd intended. 

 

"Have you heard about the most recent Royal Conference?" Kaito asked in return. 

 

Shuuichi felt like he'd been punched in the gut. They'd defied a direct order from the Enoshima Empire, at the Royal Conference? 

 

Had they gone mad?

 

"They were guests of honor at the most recent one," he said, trying to steady himself.

 

"You didn't attend it with them. Why?" 

 

The answer slipped out before he could find a delicate way to phrase it. "I was in heat."

 

"Even after that, they didn't tell you what happened?" 

 

"They never tell me what happens at meetings like that. It will be a long time before I become old enough to start properly preparing for the title of being the head of the Saihara Clan, so they see no need to inform me of such things until then."

 

Kaitos raised an eyebrow. "Really? They still follow that tradition?" 

 

Shuuichi shrugged, half-closing his eyes. He was more than ready for any snide comments of "spoiled omega bitch" to start coming at any time now. "Well, it's not like it truly matters now… Tell me, what exactly did they do?" He felt drained, and he didn't feel like dealing with any more song and dance. 

 

"They deliberately went an order that was directly addressed to them by the Enoshima Empire."

 

Shuuichi heard something break, and he couldn't tell whether it was in his mind or in real life. 

 

This was something that could get them all killed. If you dared to disobey a direct order from the Enoshima Empire, you were as good as dead. 

 

His parents had warned him about this sort of thing. His tutors had warned him. Hell, even the servants had warned him when he was young. He knew that if you got an order that was directly addressed to you from the Empire, that you'd better fucking bend over backward in order to escape her wrath. 

 

Not only that, but out of everyone who would get a bad end out of the situation of triggering Junko's madness, he was the one who would get the absolute worst out of it. 

 

Not only was he an Omega, but he was also a male Omega. While that meant he was already heavily prized in most circles, his magical ability, never mind how nebulous and useless it was, bumped up his prestige. Just being an Omega meant that he had nothing to wish for, since Omegas were highly revered. Add on everything else, and he would be the first to admit that he was heavily spoiled. 

 

Not only that, but looking at the environment he was raised in, where people not only indulged in their favorite vices, but did so openly, without bothering to even pretend to have any sense of modesty or decorum. It was a society that didn't care what people thought of them, as lions as they were enjoying what they were doing. 

 

People usually called people around his age rotten oranges, because. at this time, they were starting to get fully set into their ways, and with mentors like the people who currently had authority and influence… well. 

 

To put it bluntly, it was lucky that he'd ended up being mild-mannered.

 

(People who particularly hated his province would often compare them to the Enoshima Empire itself. Most people tended to disagree; there was a large difference between a little debauchery and… that.)

 

In spite of that, he wasn't as completely oblivious as most might think. 

 

He knew very well that people like him were the ones Junko enjoyed breaking the most. 

 

In order to avoid that, whenever his family started talking about court affairs and similar topics, he usually left the room. Not because he had no interest, but because being privy to such knowledge, given his status, was very risky business. 

 

And now look what his family had gone and done. 

 

"What order did she give them?"

 

"She gave them an order to hand you over." The implications of that were thick.

 

"W-Why?"

 

"Let's just say that your family is more well-known than they would have you think."

 

"And?"

 

"Junko wanted them to hand you over to her... personally."

 

Shuuichi recoiled, feeling horrified. "What?!" He definitely did not like where this was going at all...

 

"She's been doing this for a while, steadily building up an unwilling harem. She’s been targeting smaller clans in the South Kingdom, and your clan is the first, and the only one to refuse her order."

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few more problems arise.

**CHAPTER THREE**

Shuuichi could feel the color leaching from his face as his hands clenched into fists even tighter than they had been earlier.

 

He'd break the skin on his palms at this rate.

 

He'd known that the fact that he was an Omega could easily bring about people who had... unsavory ideas, but to think that he had been so close to becoming one of her personal whores was so horrifying that he couldn't even muster the energy to shiver.

His muscles felt as if they were locked in place, and he could feel his legs folding up against him, his gut doing acrobatics that could make gymnasts envious...

 

That was a practice gotten rid of only two hundred years ago, the act of thinking of Omegas as property to collect like that. Even though most people didn't seem to think like that anymore, and didn't have needlessly large harems of Omegas, they still held firm to the belief that Omegas were still treated as accessories, especially in the noble ranks.

 

And that in itself was a double-edged sword.

 

All he as expected to do was settle down with an Alpha, and become nothing but an empty figurehead. He was meant to become good at managing the affairs of the house, and since he was still young, he already had a healthy libido to sate his would-be partner.

 

However, for all that, he still had a small sense of autonomy. Most Alphas couldn't be bothered with their Omegas outside of matters of the bedroom and having them look pretty for lavish parties. Apart from that, he got to do everything by himself: go out and amuse himself, stay in and work, sleep all day, eat cake as much as he wanted... he got to decide what he would do with his time and how he would do things.

 

But if Junko Enoshima of all people was amassing a harem...

 

The only people who got close to her were people who were bound to her by means of dark magic, or people she had brainwashed.

 

A cold chill snaked up his spine at the thought of it. He could feel nothing but pity and fear for those for who hadn't been as lucky as he had. It was almost a shame that he knew full well that there was no amount of fear or pity in the world that would make it any less real, or make them suffer any less than they definitely would.

 

He had to move on.

 

But... There was a single question he had.

 

"Is it only Omegas she's taken?"

 

He desperately wanted to hope this wasn't a specific thing. He already felt like a nervous wreck; if this was some sort of special targeting nonsense, he'd prefer to just up and die right this second.

 

"No. She holds no regard for that. What she's been looking for, is magical potential, both intrinsic and extrinsic."

 

Magical potential...

 

"And since you were someone she'd apparently had her eye on, people got to digging rather quickly-"

 

"She must have low standards," Shuuichi interrupted, "because my ability is one of the most nebulous, roundabout things I've ever undergone the misery of exploring."

 

Kaito looked at him carefully. "Are you serious about that?"

 

"Yes."

 

Kaito closed his eyes for a second, opening them again quickly. "So they not only kept you in the dark about important political developments, they kept you in the dark about your own ability as well?" He sighed. "This isn't good at all..."

 

"What isn't good?" Shuuichi asked. He was struggling to keep his voice from rising; he felt scared and this wasn't making any sense.

 

Kaito looked at him dead in the eyes, unflinchingly. "Your so-called, 'nebulous and roundabout' ability, is one of the rarest, most sought after abilities in the known world."

 

"You're kidding." Shuuichi was going to pretend his heart wasn't alternating between trying to burst out of his chest and stopping every few seconds.

 

"The entire Royal Investigators Force has this ability. Your uncle has this ability. Princess Kyoko Kirigiri has this ability. And yet all you can think of your ability is that it's tedious?" He almost sounded accusing. And a little… exasperated?

 

"It is! In a place where everything is organized and almost nothing happens to disrupt the peace, I end up having no use for it! All thieves who truly want to steal something of value wouldn't even think of targeting my clan." Shuuichi knew his tone of voice wasn't doing anything for a good portrayal of him right now, but he couldn't care less.

 

"They really sheltered you, didn't they?" it sounded like a question, but felt more like a blunt statement.

 

"I never denied that," Shuuichi said, matching Kaito's dry tone. He felt riled up and he just wanted this to stop.

 

"And yet you don't care."

 

"It's not like I can do anything useful except for reading and looking pretty at this point in time,” he snapped. “Whenever they see it fit for me to begin taking on the role as clan leader, they'll probably start socializing me a little more. For now, though, I don't really have much purpose in the hierarchy except for being a figurehead for an empty position.”

 

That was a fact that he'd hated just a few years ago, as a teenager. He'd wanted to be needed for something apart from another party or another visit to the tailor. But when he'd actually stopped to look at how hostile the world could be towards his kind, revered as his kind might be, the desire to be out and about quickly dried up. He would be fine simply fulfilling the role of a doll to be observed, just as long as he was protected from anything undesirable. It was a boring life, but it was a safe life.

 

"Do you feel any ambition to do something with your life at all?”

 

The question threw him off-balance. He... honestly didn't.

 

He simply lived out his life on a cloud of dull ignorance. It was easier that way. The calendar was nothing more than a measure for the next tea party or formal ball he had to attend. The schedule-book was always full of the inane tasks he had to do, like accompanying his parents on some minor excursion, visiting the tailor, practicing basic magic skills so his mana wouldn't waste away...

 

There was nothing to really consider or hope for when your purpose was already planned out for you.

 

What was the point? There was no true motivation to do anything, just... a few small incentives to exist.

 

He shook his head and looked up at Kaito.

 

Kaito looked angry, and for the life of him, he couldn't figure out why.

 

"I can't believe it. So this is why this particular province is so backward..."

 

"Hey!" He wasn't what you would call patriotic, but he could still take offense at that.

 

"This place mainly operates on social norms that started dying out fifty years ago. And around eighty percent of the population hasn't bothered with trying to change. If you'd been born in any other province in this kingdom, by now you would already have started making a niche for yourself in the Royal Investigators Force."

 

Shuuichi couldn't help but huff at that. "Me? Do that? You can't be serious! It took my uncle years to simply be recognized for his own potential, and he was an Alpha!

 

“I'm an Omega, do you really expect me to do things that would command any level of respect? I'm lucky that I was born into a family of my status... others would probably have been sold to the Northern Regions as slaves by the time they were my age, or sent away, tied down to arranged marriages."

 

(He was honestly lucky that his parents hadn't tied him down to one by this point. And as for people who, “bothered to change with the times…”  there was a good reason he didn't think much of them. Several, in fact.)

 

Kaito shook his head, and his scent betrayed the sheer amount of disbelief he was experiencing.

 

"You're just lucky nobody decided to target you back in the ballroom. This would definitely have painted your clan in a bad light."

 

"Technically, you did target me, and you're still targeting me right now. Can you just tell me the point of this?"

 

"Alright. Seeing as how your clan has insufficient resources to properly protect you from any potential retribution from Junko, and the fact that the Kirigiri Kingdom has its hands full with protecting several other potential victims, as a part of the alliance, my kingdom is going to assist them in protecting the rest of said potential victims."

 

Shuuichi didn't like where this was going. Not at all. He could feel his eyes narrowing in suspicion. "Which means...?"

 

"To throw off any potential spies sent here to kidnap you, you're going to have to move to my kingdom for a while."


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few more unexpected developments crop up. In return, Shuuichi is forced to recall a few things that he would rather have preferred to continue ignoring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the absolutely ridiculous length of this chapter. I could find no way to successfully split it into smaller chapters, so, I decided to post it like this.

**CHAPTER FOUR**

Shuuichi had no idea if his stomach had dropped to the floor, if his heart had stopped beating, or both of those had happened at once. His brain refused to work, and while he could detect that his mouth was still closed, he was sure his eyes were bulging out of his head with how wide he'd opened them.

 

Then he closed them.

 

Instinctively, he found himself wrapping his arms tightly around his torso, and he felt himself start to shiver.

 

This had to be some sort of joke, right? Or some sort of bad dream? Maybe he'd just drank too much wine and had passed out on the chair earlier in the night or something similar. This couldn't be happening. It just couldn't be happening.

 

It wasn't real, it wasn't real. It couldn't be real.

 

He refused to believe it.

 

He opened his eyes again, staring down at the skirt of his dress, at the different shades of blue that seemed to start swirling into each other, blending into one large, varied mess of color.

 

This had to be fake.

 

He hadn't been speaking with royalty just now, royalty that had come to deliver a terrible message to him. No, no, this had to be a dream, no, a nightmare.

 

This wasn't real, it couldn't _be_ real, it _couldn't_ be real, it couldn't be  _real_ , no, no, no, no, no, no…

 

He could feel himself shivering.

 

Then he felt strong arms encircle him, and the warm tones of Kaito's scent surrounded him, reassuring him.

 

Then it hit him.

 

It was real.

 

It was all real.

 

It was real and there was absolutely nothing he could do to stop it, nothing he could do as his life was ripped away from him and everything went out of place and nothing was right and everything just came crashing down right before his eyes while he was powerless to do anything, anything at all--

 

He buried himself in the calming, reassuring scent, and he cried.

 

He cried and cried and cried until he was sick of his own voice and he had a headache that threatened to split his forehead open.

 

(And even then he couldn't stop sniffling and whimpering like some sort of miserable pup who had been abandoned by their mother.)

 

He had no idea when he fell asleep, he just knew that everything slowly swirled into black at one point and everything soon calm, quiet and stable.

 

…

 

…

 

…

 

Shuuichi opened his eyes slowly, feeling excessively sluggish. He was greeted by the sight of an unfamiliar ceiling and the feeling of unfamiliar sheets. For a few moments, his heart seized with fear, until he remembered what had happened the previous night.

 

It had been… real. Not some drunken fantasy concocted haphazardly with bits and pieces of information about global affairs that he barely knew anything about, but a real-life event that had singlehandedly upended his way of life.

 

He felt exhausted, and he probably looked like a mess. He idly wondered what his parents would think if they could see him right then. They would probably be ashamed.

 

He couldn't even bother mustering up the energy to sigh, so he simply sat up - again, slowly - and looked around the room. From there he was able to make two simple deductions. One, it appeared that he had been the only one to sleep on the bed, and two, Kaito was nowhere to be found. His scent was also quite faint.

 

Shuuichi stretched slowly, feeling how stiff his limbs were. They crackled and popped at every movement, and he groaned when he felt small tingles of proper feeling run down them. He got up, standing next to the bed, and assessed the state of his dress. It was wrinkled, and not in a tasteful way.

 

To put it bluntly, it looked like he'd been caught in a windstorm and dragged through a few puddles of water. He sighed and closed his eyes. He cautiously reached out with his magic, feeling the dress and how it sat on his body. His magic slowly slipped under the fabric, leaving a cool sensation on his skin as it formed a layer between himself and the dress. He raised his hands up in the air, and the dress slipped off of him with ease. Then he weakly tossed it some distance in front of him and practically collapsed onto the bed again, slowly laying himself down onto the bed, on top of the wrinkled sheets.

 

He opened his eyes, looking at the ceiling again. These rooms were usually tailored to suit the main occupant’s interests, and this one was no exception. Currently, the ceiling was occupied with a beautiful miniaturized representation of the night sky. The stars even twinkled as the real ones did. Under any other circumstances, he would have smiled, but currently, he couldn't muster much energy.

 

Then he heard the door opening.

 

Shuuichi knew that he should be racing to cover himself up, seeing the fact that he was almost completely uncovered, thanks to the fact that he'd removed both the dress and the shift underneath it, but he couldn't care less.

 

He felt miserably tired.

 

Then he felt something fall on top of him. It felt warm and fuzzy, like a luxuriously thick towel.

 

“A-Are you okay?” it was Kaito, who sounded a little… Embarrassed?

 

“Just exhausted,” He said, feeling a small smile creep onto his face. He mustered the energy to sit up and was rewarded with the face of a slightly flustered Kaito Momota who was quickly shutting the door behind him, as well as averting his gaze slightly.

 

He was fully dressed, so Shuuichi assumed that the towel had been teleported in from somewhere else pretty quickly, like a knee-jerk reaction.

 

It was…. cute. And surprisingly courteous.

 

...but something in him decided that a little teasing wouldn't be too out of order.

 

“Is there something wrong, my Prince?” he asked, unable to keep the drawl out of his voice. “Never seen an Omega naked before?”

 

“Are you serious?” the questions had hit their target, and he could see Kaito's cheeks flush slightly.

 

What would a little teasing lead to? He decided to find out. Of course, logic dictated that since he was tired, something could go wrong somewhere…

 

Since when had he become a philosopher? It couldn't hurt that much, now could it?

 

“Yes, my Prince,” he said, deliberately reusing the needlessly formal term.

 

“Why are you calling me that all of a sudden? It's not necessary, you know.” That was interesting. Most people would have preening already, but there was the odd humble person here or there.

 

But the prideful was the majority, and he'd been taught to appeal to them as much as he possibly could to avoid trouble.

 

Etiquette lessons.

 

He’d never liked them.

 

“Because I’ll probably have to adjust to using it regularly,” Shuuichi said, stringing on the excuse. “You technically are my prince now, since your kingdom and my native kingdom are amalgamating. Besides,” he said, etiquette lessons streaming through the back of his mind, despite his best efforts, “the way I acted last night is inexcusable. And what I said earlier was also disrespectful. Forgive me, please.”

 

He did feel bad about that… especially all of the crying. God, he was lucky no one else was around when he'd broken down… people used everything and anything for gossip these days.

 

And if it made Kaito uncomfortable while he was at it, that was something he could savor a little.

 

“Oh, come on, none of that. It was better talking to you before you remembered about all those needless airs,” Kaito said, shaking his head a little. “Whether I'm your prince or not, you can just call me Kaito. I prefer it that way, and it makes things easier for both of us.”

 

Shuuichi felt a little warmth settle in his chest. This was going… surprisingly well?

 

“Alright, Kaito,” he said, stretching his legs a little. The air tingled a little bit before he returned to a more relaxed position.

 

And then the atmosphere of the room changed slightly.

 

“Mmm… Can I ask you a question?” the slightly unsure tone of voice Kaito used spoke volumes about the question, and Shuuichi couldn't help but marvel slightly.

 

“Sure.”

 

Kaito inhaled deeply, as if he was trying to steady himself before asking. Shuuichi had to stop himself from laughing. All that had happened last night, and his state of undress was what Kaito felt unsure about?

 

“...were you… doing anything before I came in?”

 

Shuuichi's smile grew. “Apart from looking at the ceiling? No. Did you expect me to be doing anything?”

 

Kaito sputtered, and Shuuichi couldn't help the fact that his smile just wouldn't let up.

 

“I… I wasn't insinuating…”

 

“Don't worry, I know you weren't, “ Shuuichi said,  clutching the towel loosely. “I just didn't expect you to return to the room, and I wouldn't have been able to guess that you were coming.” he shrugged. “An oversight on my part. It's a little odd that you actually got something to cover me up with, if I'm being honest. Especially considering…” he shrugged meaningfully. It was a common fact, no one really cared that much about it anymore.

 

It was still a little weird, though. He wouldn't really be against it, per se… it was expected for him to go through with anything an Alpha said, being an Omega and all. Not that he always complied to that rule, but in this case… he definitely wouldn't really be complaining.

 

“Do I really seem like some sort of pervert to you?” Kaito sounded a little putout.

 

A wry smile spread over Shuuichi's face. “Do you truly wish to know the answer to that question, my Prince?” he dropped the smile at the affronted expression that Kaito put up at that. “But honestly, around these parts, we logically shouldn't be talking by now.” Again, not that he would really mind…

 

It wasn't like many people had any real modesty to speak of, himself included, and it wasn't like he was actually opposed to it. What he found strange was Kaito's reaction to it.

 

“What is that supposed to mean?”

 

His eyebrows furrowed. Did Kaito really need him to spell it out? “That I thought you'd be fucking me? It’s a common thing around here, you know.”

 

“Common” meaning emotionally driven sex.

 

Particularly hate sex.

 

“Really. ”...had Kaito been raised in one of those puritan places, or was he just this oblivious?

 

Shuuichi just stared flatly at Kaito for a few seconds, then tilted his head slightly.

 

“Nobles of my own rank would have already gone far away from here, and I would already be sleeping off the exertion. But you? A royal? According to most cautionary tales, we'd still probably be in the middle of fucking. The old myths have some credence behind them, I g--”

 

Kaitos expression had turned cold, and Shuuichi knew something was amiss.

 

Something told him that the humor had been lost in transition.

 

Maybe backtracking would work. “Did I say something wrong?”

 

“Guess.” The tepid tone of voice spoke volumes.

 

Shuuichi felt confounded. “I'm not trying to assassinate your character or anything, calm down.”

 

…that… could have been phrased better, couldn't it?

 

“I don't appreciate the insinuations, thanks. I'd heard that this province runs on a different set of rules than the rest of the kingdom, but this is something else entirely,” Kaito said, looking away.

 

This had… derailed. _Spectacularly._ And Shuuichi, despite himself was feeling a little riled up about this.

 

He set his face to a neutral expression. “Excuse me for having humor unsuited to your taste, your highness,” he said quietly. He had no idea what had gone wrong, but something told him it would take a while for him to find out.

 

If Kaito wasn't going to tell him outright what was wrong, he couldn't backtrack very well. He realized that, depending on just how conservative Kaito's kingdom was, he could have managed to issue a grave insult to him by accident.

 

That and that alone was enough to get him to stop talking. The atmosphere soon froze over after that.

 

Shuuichi started feeling more and more uneasy about the situation before he heard Kaito sigh.

 

“What?” That had come out… a lot sharper than he'd intended…

 

“Nothing.”

 

“Nothing?” he asked incredulously. “If I've offended you, can you at least tell me where I screwed up?”

 

“I… don't want to talk about it. Okay?” Kaito sounded oddly reserved.

 

“Really?” This was… Paradoxical. Kaito didn't like formalities, yet such a cheap joke could completely crash a conversation? Perhaps this was an urge lacking in tact, but Shuuichi wanted to find out just what this was about. “That's a bit odd.”

 

“What's weird about it?”

 

“Just seems a little bit like contradictory customs, in my opinion.” He said it mildly, but even a child would be able to tell the intention behind this.

 

“Like the ones that exist here?”

 

“That's going a little quickly, don't you think?” And he didn't like it. He didn’t like where this was going at all.

 

“I researched the culture for myself before arriving here, and I've been here for the past week. I think I know what I'm saying when I say it may not only be a trait applicable to my kingdom.”

 

“And back to formalities so quickly? Why is that?” Shuuichi's patience felt… oddly thin at this particular moment.

 

“I think I need to--”

 

Shuuichi shook his head, closing his eyes.

 

“What?” Kaito's voice had a slight edge to it, and Shuuichi felt a small stab of satisfaction.

 

At least he was the only one who was confused at this point.

 

He felt a little contented about that. It was probably a result of him being a bit vindictive.

 

“Oh, never mind. If you're already going to assume things like that--”

 

“Hey!”

 

“Don't you ‘hey!’ me! I live here, and I don't really take kindly to such assumptions, thanks!” the biting tone in his voice was obvious.

 

“Oh, really?”

 

Oh, great. Things had turned one hundred and eighty degrees so quickly it was almost unbelievable.

 

“It's not my fault that I don't come from some peaceful little puritan province, pardon me for having a different sense of humor!”

 

“Slow down for just a--”

 

“Give me a good reason why I should bother doing that and maybe I'll try.” The anger was inexplicable and probably irrational, but he couldn't find it in him to stop.

 

“I said I didn't want to talk about it, for goodness sake!”

 

“And when did I mention that? Hmm? Have something weighing on your mind?” the venom in his voice was obvious.

 

“Are you serious?”

 

“About what?”

 

Kaito scoffed. “You're kidding. You're not pulling that nonsense, are you?”

 

Shuuichi just glared at him.

 

“This is even worse than the rumors said it would be…”

 

“Rumors?”

 

“Oh, you haven't heard?” the tone Kaito used sent alarm bells off in Shuuichi's head.

 

“Heard about what?”

 

“The news circulating about your province.”

 

“What about it?”

 

“Your little province here is one of the most backward and insular places the entire region has ever seen. It's a mystery as to how it managed to survive like this, for so many years.”

 

Shuuichi growled lowly. “Excuse me?” The tone Kaito had used was anything but positive, and he felt as if he was being boxed into an inescapable corner.

 

Kaito growled in return, and he felt a shiver run down his spine. Damn his fucking instincts. He would not take this lightly, he wasn't going to roll over in submission, not for this argument. He felt the scent glands in his wrists pulse slightly, but he tried to ignore it.

 

Kaito's scent filled the air, and it had a definitely angry edge to it.

 

“Are you going to deny that this sort of petty, behavior isn't commonplace here? As well as a myriad of needlessly out of place behavior?”

 

Shuuichi gripped the fluffy towel closer, shifted his legs a little and tossed his head to the side, sliding his eyes, refusing to be cowed. He closed his eyes for good measure.

 

“I have  _no_ idea what you're talking about,” he said quietly.

 

“The sad thing about that is that I can actually believe that,” Kaito said. At that, Shuuichi opened a single eye and glared at him as coldly as he could.

 

“Like I care.”

 

Kaito's expression darkened further, and Shuuichi couldn't help but feel just a little uneasy.

 

“You don't care about this extreme passiveness?”

 

“It's a good counter to extreme, random mood swings, don't you think?”

 

“Oh, really?”

 

“There are many things that could fall under that tone, you know. Staying passive isn't always a good idea during those circumstances.”

 

“For example?”

 

“After a tyrant makes a declaration that could put a person in extreme danger.”

 

“And what does _that_ have to do with _this_?”

 

“After Junko announced her terms, your parents were struck dumb. The only reason you weren't kidnapped and taken to her by force is because your uncle and aunt refused to comply passively. Your parents were ready to give you up, right then and there, to avoid any, quote-unquote, _unnecessary struggles_.”

 

Shuuichi recoiled as if he'd been hit. “You're lying!” Even as he said it, he had a slight suspicion that it might not just be a scare tactic. His parents had become more and more distant to him in recent times, and heaven knew the reputation his clan had for things of this nature.

 

It wasn't good. It was _not good at all_.

 

Kaito, apparently seemed to know that, judging by the way his posture had shifted. “So you think.”

 

“Shut up!”

 

“Who do you think you're talking to like that?” Kaito's tone went dangerously low, as if he was on the threshold of using the Alpha tone on him.

 

“Ah, yes, of course, you turn and show your true colors as soon as something displeases you. Typical Alpha,” Shuuichi hissed, his pitch rising to a point that was only a few points lower than yelling. His wrist glands throbbed a little.

 

Omegas weren't completely defenseless against the Alpha tone, and while their Omega tone wasn't as strong as that of an Alpha, if you knew how to use it correctly, it could be just as devastating.

 

“Wha--You little--” Kaito stammered.

 

“Finish it!” Shuuichi turned to face Kaito again squarely. “Go on, what's stopping you? It's what everyone thinks of me at this point, and at this period of time, I could care less about it!”

 

Kaito looked dumbfounded, but his expression quickly changed to a deep scowl. “You sound exactly like your mother did when she was floundering around for an excuse. Like an airheaded brat throwing a tantrum when things aren't going their way, refusing to acknowledge they made a mistake!” It wasn't quite the Alpha tone, but the hostility was there.

 

He would be the first to admit that his mother could be self-centered, but…  “How _dare_ you--”

 

“I think you've forgotten something,” Kaito interrupted. “I'm the one with a higher rank here. If you don't put a lid on your temper tantrum soon, you're going to have a hard time.”

 

Shuuichi scoffed. “Oh, please! What are you going to do, execute me? Wouldn't that be even more archaic than the so-called customs that exist here?”  

 

“No, of course not. But I doubt you would want news of this to circulate. You're barely maintaining a good reputation with the public at this point, what with your clan’s general popularity rate, and one more story going into circulation could crash any and all sympathy people have for you.”

 

Of course, he had to be on thin fucking ice on every single fucking thing he was mandated to do in life. There was more than one reason why his uncle had had such a hard time rising in the ranks of the Royal Investigation Force, more than one reason why he wasn't already betrothed to some random Alpha, or perhaps having his first pup.

 

There were fair weather friends, and then there was his clan. Alliances could be formed and destroyed on a simple random whim. Promises could easily be twisted and broken. It was a fact that he preferred to avoid thinking about, but a fact that impacted him more than he would like to think was fair.

 

And if Kaito had already known about their particular reputation before all of this…

 

Shuuichi could feel his eyes widen in realization. He was completely out of his depth here, and about to venture into unfamiliar territory. One screw up could literally ruin him, and ruin him in a way that he couldn’t afford to ignore all of the time.

 

“You can't get out of everything by pushing people away and throwing tantrums. Passiveness will also get you nowhere.”

 

Shuuichi felt as if he should be shaking, but even though he felt like the literal floor had been yanked out from beneath him, he felt that he was still. Utterly still. Stable even.

 

He'd only ever felt this way a few times before in his life.

 

Each of those times had been either one of the most terrifying or the most mind-stopping experiences he'd ever had.

 

The expression Kaito had on now made him feel unsettled. It wasn't an expression he was unfamiliar with. It was disappointment, mixed with pity, clear as day.

 

Under absolutely any other situation, he would start scribbling for a way to transform that expression into one of anger, or even distrust. Now? He could only look away, pretend as if it wasn't there.

 

He had no idea if the gaping silence was really in the room or if he was imagining it.

 

“You're going to have a long way to go if you're going to survive even a day in a normal social environment, you know that?”

 

Shuuichi felt as if his spirit had momentarily vacated his body. Or like ice water had been dumped all over him. One or the other.

 

Whatever the case, he felt like he couldn't speak. As if something within him… had been wounded. It was an odd sensation. He definitely didn't like it. How had this conversation managed to invert itself so thoroughly…?

 

All he could do was keep silent.

 

The silence was thick, almost choking, even as Kaito’s scent seemed to thin out a bit. Shuuichi felt as if he was going to have a lot to think over for a while.

 

When the silence had lasted for about ten minutes, Kaito coughed. Not a genuine cough, but one meant to get his attention. Shuuichi looked up at him slightly.

 

“What is it?” This time, it wasn’t as sharp as he’d wanted it to be. On second thought… that was probably for the best.

 

“We have to start traveling today. To my kingdom, remember?”

 

“Oh…” Right. Because of the amalgamation, as well as to throw Junko off. That was also the reason why he actually had to think over how he would portray himself…

 

“How long will it take you to get ready?”

 

“When do we have to leave?”

 

“Late afternoon, around three pm. It's around eleven o'clock in the morning right now.”

 

“...an hour.”

 

“Hm?”

 

“I can get ready in an hour.”

 

“Alright. I'll check on you in two hours. There's an ensuite bathroom right behind you, so you can go and clean up.”

 

Shuuichi nodded. He felt like he needed a bath right about now, and he really needed to think over a few things.

 

“I'll have the staff come up and provide you with fresh clothes in around half an hour. Is that alright?”

 

Shuuichi nodded again.

 

Kaito sighed. “Good. I have some business to attend to, so I'll see you after you're ready.” with that, he left the room.

 

After he was sure that Kaito’s footsteps had gone far enough away, Shuuichi ran to the bathroom as if his feet were on fire. He locked the door as securely as he could, and the quick spell for a bubble bath sprang off his fingers shakily, filling the bath with jasmine-scented bubbles. He got in stiffly, and he used a heating spell to warm the water until it was almost scalding.

 

He couldn't fully comprehend what had happened, but something told him that it would be in his best interest if he didn't question it.

 

Somewhere, things had gone from what he'd thought was a wry joke to something else entirely. How would he have known that would go over so spectacularly badly?

 

Whatever the case, he’d apparently hit a very sensitive nerve with Kaito. While Omegas were usually spoiled to their heart’s content, Alphas were usually… less revered, to say the least. In fact, most of them were seen as nothing but sleazy, good-for-nothings. It was common for Omegas to be taught to avoid Alphas because they were little more than beasts ruled by their instincts. His province didn’t give much stock to those rumors, but, oddly, most places still did.

 

He faintly realized that, depending on just how conservative the place where Kaito had been raised actually was, what he’d intended as a simple joke could be seen as a severe insult. And from Kaito’s behavior, he needed a little time alone after that.

 

Fantastic going. Right before you travel to a new kingdom, insult their crown prince. Kaito was right, at this rate he wouldn’t last a day in that new kingdom… he sighed, placing a hand onto his forehead. He was an idiot.

 

As if his social prospects weren't bad enough thanks to his family's name, he had to not only mitigate that, but try and actually actively break away from it? That would be next to impossible.

 

His clan had had this reputation for… oh, around two hundred years. And since it had effectively come into play as soon as he was born, he was used to it. Most avoided him like the plague, especially during times when his family's “business” was thriving. That usually meant some poor clan was having its reputation dissected, or having its riches plundered, or simply… ending.

 

He was no stranger to the concept of murder. After all, his uncle didn't investigate simple missing person cases. It wasn't like the books he usually read had much more content than following the usual murder mystery plot anyhow. It wasn’t as if he was completely ignorant of what his family did. One could say that, in a way, he had grown desensitized to it.

 

There wasn't much need to be emotional about anything, because he'd known ever since he was small just how fickle life was. So why not enjoy yourself to the fullest, or simply not care about what goes on around you? That philosophy was an oddity, even among these circles, that was for sure. His reserved attitude, as, well as his heritage, had made sure that most people from any sensible family would prefer to avoid him rather than to approach him in any way, shape or form. It was a curious form of isolation but one he had quickly become accustomed to, and had grown fond of quite quickly.

 

And now he had to not only monitor his reputation, but make sure it didn't fall any further? Had Kaito actually heard and comprehended what had issued from his mouth? He could no more do  _that_ than a rat could stop being vermin. He shook his head.

 

He jumped when he saw runes flicker through the water. Then he relaxed as he remembered that these baths usually reacted that way after an individual simply stayed in one place without doing anything for around ten minutes. The familiar warm tingles of magical cleansing washed over him, and a sponge apparated from thin air and began to scrub his body clean.

 

It was a little embarrassing, to think that he had become so lost in thought for so long, but there was nothing he could do to rescind it, was there?

 

He closed his eyes as it moved towards his face, and shifted a little as it scrubbed him clean of all that had happened earlier.

 

It was a childish sentiment, to think that simply bathing could wash the mistakes away, but he would be the first to admit that he probably hadn't matured much past his late teenage years.

 

He felt something get rubbed into his hair and a little splash of water on his head was followed by vigorous scrubbing that made him wince slightly. That was a rather aggressive way to get his hair washed… unless it only felt that way because it was tangled. The feeling of discomfort quickly subsided, and his mind went back to wondering half-heartedly about his life.

 

When you had a natural lifespan of over a hundred years, and a family that was rich enough to allow you to live comfortably throughout your juvenile life, you tended to not care much about anything else except yourself. That was something he could safely say he'd been able to take note of. It wasn't like anyone would actually be looking out for him, and there was no one for him to really rely on, so… The answer was obvious. If no one cared for you, you would have to care for yourself.

 

He often avoided other people because of this. They were much too troublesome for his liking most of the time, and although he could usually see the subtle social nuances of his province, outsiders were a can of worms he was not prepared to deal with.

 

People had called him self-centered, and proud, and narrow-minded. He'd never cared back then, but now… if so many things could occur over the course of two weeks, and he, the one who was the most affected by these things, was one of the last, if not the actual last one to know, maybe they had a point.

 

And then, what Kaito had said, about his parents…

 

Looking back on it, it wasn't truly surprising. After all, it was due to his aunt and uncle that he hadn't been married off years ago. It was only recently that his parents had cooled down on the insistent reminders about marriage.

 

Junko’s offer could have been heaven-sent in their eyes. Marry off the problematic child, get him far away from your sight, and receive what would probably be a very hefty dowry for all their troubles. Never mind the fact that they had no heir because of that; they still had a few fertile years left.

 

His thoughts soon devolved unto empty silence, and all he could focus on was the way the water in the bath flowed around him, and how the sponge moved to clean him off. It was a surprisingly quick bath if he was being honest. Of course, royalty couldn't always spare the time to have long, luxurious baths, especially in troubled times like these.

 

The entire room was probably magically hotwired to only have to maintain the customizations for a short period of time, so this shouldn't be much of a surprise.

 

He felt water rinsing the soap off of him, the last few scrubs of the sponge and the last of his hair getting ran through by magic. The water flowed silently down the drain, and as he stood up, a towel immediately rushed to dry him off. It was a little more hands-off than he was used to, but then again, left to his own devices, he was sure he'd still be sitting in the bath.

 

After a few more seconds of quickly and thoroughly drying him, the towel wrapped itself around him. It was then that he noticed that the towel was very large, almost the size of a small blanket. Was this the normal thing here? He wondered…

 

He cautiously opened the door, to see a new outfit had been laid out for him. The dress was of a much simpler style than the one he'd worn yesterday. It was a light purple sundress. Along with it was a large, soft looking hat of a slightly darker shade of purple. Along with them were a pair of unassuming black flats.

 

A casual outfit.

 

There was a robe hung on a bedpost. He took off the towel and put it on, going over to brush his hair. Looking at the time, a little over an hour had passed since he’d gone into the bathroom.

 

He brushed his hair a little slowly, taking his time, watching the minutes tick by. Luckily, his hair wasn't too long, or he would have really managed to stall. The only thing that let him stall for so long was the fact that it was thick.

 

After he'd looked over his hair, he went over to the bed and looked under the pillow. Modest undergarments were underneath it, as he'd expected. No one knew how or why this had become tradition, but it was something normal that you could expect without fail. He took off his robe and put them on, then put on the rest of his outfit excluding the hat.

 

After that, he sat on the bed, feeling tired. He'd been feeling tired a lot lately. A little more prolonged than his usual post-heat lethargy, nothing to worry about. He sighed. He couldn't stall forever. He took the hat in his hands, examined it a little bit, and put it on, then got ready to leave the room. As soon as he did, something appeared beside him in a flash of blue light.

 

A direction stone.

 

That, too, was to be expected. He picked it up, and it immediately showed him a crude map, with a golden dot displaying where he was, and a red dot representing his destination. He furrowed his eyebrows and tilted his head. He knew the destination was one of the carriage stops, however, this was rather far away from the others. Not only that, but the direction stone was displaying a roundabout route instead of a straightforward one.

 

Maybe it was a route less traveled that it was showing, he decided, standing up. He walked out of the room with a slightly sluggish pace, keeping his eyes on the direction stone. Majority of the twists and turns it displayed were unfamiliar to him, and the last thing he wanted to do was to get lost.

 

So he walked as slowly as possible, keeping an eye on the direction stone as much as he possibly could.

 

This section of the palace was decorated with lavish decorative pieces that he was half sure costed enough to buy out the properties of his clan six times over, and he felt uncomfortable and out of place. Tee eventually stopped bothering to take in his surroundings and just focused on getting to his destination as quickly as possible.

 

Large windows let in an ample amount of sunlight into the halls, and it made him want to run at times; it was unsettling. He was used to magically created lights being trained on him, something about natural sunlight seemed a lot more unnerving. He tried to ignore it, following the route set out for him as closely as possible.

 

The halls were large and quiet. He appreciated that.

 

He soon found himself lulled into a strange sort of contentment. He simply tolerated the large halls and the ever intrusive sunlight and stuffed the feeling of unease deep down until he could barely feel it.

 

It was a bit of a lonely walk, but he'd felt lonely most of his life. He would live.

 

The journey quickly blended into a calmingly boring odyssey that he could compare to staying in the library all day and feeling miserably bored. He couldn't even feel himself walking, it was as if he was floating on a bed of warm air.

 

Mind-numbing boredom. Finally, something familiar.

 

The two dots moved closer until he realized that he was moving closer to a particularly large patch of sunlight. He looked up from the direction stone to see the large double-doors that led to the carriage stops wide open.

 

That's was understandable, honestly. Kaito had mentioned that they would be leaving in the late afternoon, so lost of the others would already have gone. It was a good way to deflect attention, now that he thought about it. Someone who was running away from something would always do it early, and in such a way that it would be glaringly obvious exactly what they had done and how they had done it. However, leaving later would be something that wouldn't be expected.

 

Besides, the Kirigiri Kingdom was known for having one of the best security systems in the entire South Region. And no matter what anyone said about his province, it was an indisputable fact that it housed some of the most paranoid people in the South Region. The sheer amount of security some buildings could have, both human and magical, was stupid at the best of times and appalling at the worst.

 

He sighed, making his way to the carriage stop he was supposed to be at. He felt tired already… food would be nice. Or water. Or better yet, sleep that wasn't brought about by crying. The last one would be best, thinking more deeply about food and drink made his stomach turn. He definitely wasn't hungry, or thirsty.

 

He started walking again, and his mind wandered off. He was brought back to the present by a small jolt running through his hand, and he blinked. The gold dot and the red dot were now blended together. He'd reached his destination.

 

That was rather fast.

 

Or maybe it seemed that way because he was absent-minded throughout the entire walk there.

 

He didn't care.

 

He looked around. While the carriage wasn't there yet there were a few seats set up beneath a magic-made canopy.

 

He'd gotten there early, then. He sat down a little heavily on one of the seats and idly turned the direction stone over in his hands. He didn't have a watch, and he couldn't accurately tell the time from shadows so he could simply suspect that he would have to wait for a while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... how was this chapter? How do you think I handled the characterization and the situation in general? What do you all think about it? I'd love to see your opinions in the comments!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The beginning of the journey ends up having a few hitches.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some description of more magical technology in here. If it sounds a bit janky, please tell me!

**CHAPTER FIVE**

After daydreaming for a little bit on how one would go about measuring a “while,” Shuuichi heard footsteps coming closer to him. He looked up from under the brim of his hat slightly.

 

Then he promptly had to stop his heart from evacuating itself from his chest.

 

Kaito had his hair tied back in a ponytail again, and he was wearing casual clothing in a slightly darker shade of purple that Shuuichi's sundress. A long-sleeve purple shirt with trousers in some sort of fabric that Shuuichi couldn't recall ever seeing before. It looked both soft and rugged at the same time, and for some reason he found his legs rubbing together at the sight of it. And the boots Kaito was wearing looked quite sturdy, if he was honest. It was almost strange to see Kaito wearing them. Looking at them a little closely, he saw that they looked to be made of high-quality, sturdy stuff and not the cheap fabric that the gardeners and laborers often wore.

 

Their appearances were so similar that he felt uncomfortable. What sort of customs did Kaito's land follow? And now he had no choice but to move there… Something told him that this wouldn't be the only time he would be feeling uncomfortable.

 

He felt unsure of himself, nervous. After that fiasco earlier, how was he supposed to act? He knew he couldn't pretend it never happened and simply give out a simple greeting, and yet he was unsure about what customs Kaito was opposed to. If he didn't like it when he was referred to using his actual title, then how the hell was Shuuichi supposed to refer to him?

 

Shuuichi brought down the brim of his has a little bit before moving to tilt the entire hat backward a little bit, not covering his face as much as he'd prefer it. Then he simply stood up and held his hands behind his back. Kaito hadn't noticed him yet, oddly enough. In fact… Shuuichi squinted a little bit. He was using a communication orb, and he seemed to be deeply involved in some sort of heated discussion.

 

It had been a wise decision to keep quiet, he assumed. A little spark of curiosity went up within him. He knew that the discussion would be about something important, seeing what had been going on over the past two weeks. But what specific topic would it be about? He wondered…

 

Then he quashed the thought. It wasn't any of his business, honestly. Kaito was of a higher rank than him and despite his… Seemingly esoteric choices of clothing, he was probably discussing about important matters that Shuuichi couldn't hope to comprehend.

 

Besides, it wasn't like he was going to have to join in on the discussion. That would never happen.

 

Then Kaito looked up at him, and Shuuichi's hands clenched tighter together. He averted his gaze to look at the grass.

 

It was a bad habit of his, but he simply couldn't abide with prolonged eye contact most of the time. It could be needlessly exhausting. He heard rather than saw Kaito quicken his pace. It was a marvel what silence could do for your hearing. He resisted the urge to pull his hat down until it covered his face, and looked up just as Kaito came to a stop.

 

…

 

“Good afternoon.” it came out in the neutral, flat tone that etiquette lessons had managed to drill into him years ago. A small part of him felt like dying, but the majority of him felt like he was already dead.

 

Kaito simply nodded. “You got here early? That's interesting.”

 

Shuuichi fought to keep a neutral expression. “Punctuality is highly valued here.” If you came only one minute late to some particularly time-sensitive events, you could be socially ostracized frighteningly quickly.

 

That, and considering what had happened this morning, he had no leeway to be late, or uncourteous. The second one grated on him slightly.

 

“Really?” Kaito didn't sound impressed.

 

Shuuichi simply nodded. When would the carriage arrive? He just wanted to go to sleep already; didn't Kaito know by now that he was a bad conversation partner after ten minutes? And, speaking of Kaito, hadn't he been using a communication orb earlier? It was either enchanted to make sure he couldn't hear anything that was said, or it was off.

 

He looked at it.

 

Apparently, it was enchanted because Kaito was focusing on it intensely. From his vantage point, he could see several small diagrams flash over its surface, looking suspiciously like maps. If he had to guess what was being talked about, it was probably some sort of strategy to counteract any unnecessary difficulties on the journey.

 

Then Kaito opened his mouth and appeared to be speaking, but he couldn't hear a word of what he was saying. He blinked. That was a rather strong two-way enchantment. Whatever was being discussed must be very sensitive.

 

Then he politely averted his gaze to look at the hills in the distance. He closed his eyes, feeling the light breeze on his face. He heard something in the distance, and focused on it. It sounded like… horse's hooves on a cobbled path. And there were the light noises the wheels made as they bumped against the path. The carriage was some distance away, but he could hear it.

 

He'd always been able to focus on things like that. Call it needless and petty, but he liked being able to do it. It had saved him many times from attempted ambushes, so he assumed it was a useful skill. He opened his eyes and squinted a little bit. Yes, the carriage was coming but it looked like it might be a while.

 

He looked back at Kaito, who seemed to be grimly staring at the information being streamed on the information orb. Was something wrong? He felt his eyebrows furrow in confusion.

 

Kaito looked up at him briefly, sighed, taking out a communication orb from his pocket and handing it over to Shuuichi. As soon as Shuuichi touched it, it inflated from the size of a monocle to a small pincushion, and a small screen projected a short distance into the air, displaying what looked like a large maze.

 

It took Shuuichi a few seconds to realize that it was a map of all major roads in the province.  He raised an eyebrow at that, but then it started updating rapidly. Clusters of small dots were gathering around the edges of most of the most used roads, as if they were waiting for something. Shuuichi realized that those dots represented people, and he frowned. The grapevine as at once the biggest asset the town had, and its greatest weakness. The news had probably been spread by an eavesdropping servant who couldn't keep their mouth shut.

 

Then the view changed to display what looked like another map of the province. However, key areas were highlighted. He quickly realized that those places were some of the largest gossip hotspots that the province had. Then streaks of white started appearing, flowing from one town to the next, and spreading like spilled milk to all of the other towns in the province.

 

“Fantastic,” he sighed his other hand moving to toy with the brim of his hat. “the town gossip has moved faster than we have. At this rate, I won't be surprised if the carriage was delayed prior to this.” he moved his hands to swipe just above the surface of the projected screen, and the display returned to the map it had displayed first.

 

The dots were gathering even faster than before, at all, lining all of the major roads like an extra border. He sighed.

 

“At this rate, we're either going to have to cut through portals or take the lesser-known roads, but that would probably throw us off-schedule even more… and I have no idea if the portals would still be working at this point. Depending on how fast the gossip spreads, portals are automatically closed to prevent these overexcited plebians from harassing nobles.

 

“We could possibly force the portals open and cut through those, we'd just have to pay a fine for that. And then it would spark up even more controversy… “

 

Shuuichi sometimes hated this fucking province.

 

“Are you serious? This happens on such a regular basis that there's already a system made to deal with this?” Kaito sounded completely and utterly aghast. “What sort of town is this?”

 

Shuuichi sneered. “I apologize, your highness, that not every province is as cultured and civilized as your own kingdom. However, despite our shortcomings, when left alone, we can be resourceful to an extent.” he didn't even bother turning back to look at Kaito. Then he swiped the air above the screen to display a familiar map, filled with triangular indicators instead of people.

 

“Well, thank goodness that the portals haven't been closed,” he muttered. He silently looked at them, mentally tracing all the paths they had at their disposal.

 

And then a chorus of yelling sprang up from absolutely nowhere and nearly deafened him.

 

“Who do you think you are?”

“Is he serious?”

“Sweet Luna, he has to be joking!”

“Holy shit!”

“Did you fucking catch that?!”

“What the hell?!”

“I'm dying over here!”

“What?!”

 

Shuuichi dropped the orb immediately and felt himself fall onto the grass, clutching his ears, screaming. Almost immediately, the nearby birds flew away.

 

Something told Shuuichi that it was going to be a long, painful day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this didn't seem too lighthearted after what happened last chapter! What do you guys think?


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few new developments crop up during the carriage ride.

**CHAPTER SIX**

A while later, Shuuichi was in the carriage, looking out of the window into the swirling blue and purple vortex that was the landscape within the realm of the portals.

 

It was nice to actually experience this, instead of instantly being pelted from one place to the next without respite. Long distance travel was a rarity one that he often cherished.

 

The air was saturated with magic, and it was a rather pleasant experience. Under any other circumstance, he would probably be boneless with contentment, letting the magic wash over him and replenish his mama reserves, which had been slightly under fed lately.

 

However, he was in the same carriage as Kaito Momota, a man who was quickly shooting up the rankings of the people he disliked the most. He wasn't going to look back, he wasn't! He didn't want to see Kaito’s insufferable smug smirk on his stupid, handsome face.

 

…handsome? Where had that come from?

 

He huffed and squirmed in his seat, rubbing his legs together aimlessly. He could feel Kaito’s eyes on him, and he could practically visualize that fucking shit-eating grin on the prince's face…

 

“Are you going to sulk all day?” Kaito said, sounding amused.

 

Shuuichi squealed in surprise, then groaned in embarrassment as he heard Kaito’s loud laughter.

 

“Oh, shut up!” No, he didn't care that if his parents heard this, that he had a strong chance of being disowned. He was sick of that insufferable smug attitude Kaito had been putting up. Ever since he'd fallen down in surprise, Kaito had shifted his focus from actually planning to… to teasing him! And he didn't like it, not one bit!

 

“Aww, is something wrong? You need a hug for that boo-boo?”

 

“I'm not a toddler, goddammit! Leave me alone!”

 

Kaito laughed again, and Shuuichi just sighed in exasperation.

 

“What do you want from me? To yell at me again? Your followers already did a good job of that, thank you very much!”

 

He knew that he would regret this later, but he just… didn't feel like he could hold back.

 

The entire day seemed to have been a complete and utter mess, and he just didn't know what to do. Part of him wanted to scream, another part wanted him to cry, and yet another part of him just wanted to straight up die on the spot.

 

He had no idea how he was supposed to handle any of this. He felt like he was trapped, and had no option of getting out any time soon. Everything was spiraling out of whatever small control he had, and he just… he'd be the first to admit he didn't take to change very well.

 

By this point, he couldn't control what was coming out of his mouth at this point, and even though he knew that he would regret it later, it felt good to lash out now.

 

“You're still hung up on that? Don't worry, it's fine.”

 

“What do you mean, ‘still’?! They nearly deafened me!” His ears had been ringing for fifteen minutes straight afterward, too…

 

“No, they didn't. They were just…

surprised, is all. No one has ever spoken to me like that in their presence before, and I am their prince…”

 

They had ‘just’ been ‘surprised’? _Right_.

 

“Oh yes, Prince Kaito who can do no wrong, Prince Kaito who knows all, just fucking leave me alone!”

 

He hated, absolutely _hated_ , getting mocked in any way, shape or form. He'd had enough of that when he was younger; this was one of the reasons he kept to himself.

 

“You're really painting yourself to look like a spoiled brat, you know that. We're going to arrive first, and the last thing you'd want to do is come out scowling the first time they see you.”

 

“What's the point? They already made their first impression of me, so I'm not going to bother with them anymore.” It wasn't like he'd cared anymore.

 

“Hey.” Kaito's tone turned a lot less joking and a lot more serious. “That attitude isn't going to help you anywhere, and especially not in my kingdom.”

 

But Shuuichi didn't care. “I don't care, what's the point? I can recall hearing at least eight distinguishable voices, and the connection probably hadn't solidified enough to let me hear the others. If you're planning a travel route so thoroughly, the must have been at least twenty people on the connection. And people talk about things like this.

 

“Oh, God, why did I even open my mouth at all?” This was why he didn't like talking in the first instance…

 

“Oh boy, again with the theatrics.”

 

“Hey! Leave me alone, why don't you! What did I do to you?” As soon as the words slipped out of his mouth, he knew he'd fucked up.

 

“Hmm… apart from insinuating that I didn't have moral standards, insulting my homeland, and insulting my intelligence? You've acted like a selfish, stuck-up little brat. Can you take a single moment to think of something that isn't you, or doesn't affect you?”

 

Something finally clicked into place, and Shuuichi felt both relieved and exhausted at the same time.

 

Kaito was from one of  _those_ places.

 

One of those places where people were as transparent as windows. Where you could probably leave the windows open at night without fear.

 

Shuuichi snorted. “You say that as if it's worthwhile to do that. Where I come from, sympathy is viewed as a weakness.”

 

“Oh, yes, go on. Blame everything except yourself.”

 

“I never said I was innocent, did I? I simply said that sympathy isn't an advantageous trait to have where I come from. Most good people move out rather quickly, and I don't blame them.”

 

Shuuichi knew he wasn't a good person. It was one of the most common observations people made about him, especially when they were outsiders, and had either grown up in other provides or in other kingdoms entirely.

 

A small part of him felt sad about that, but it wasn't as if he could really do anything about it.

 

He just had no reason to change himself. To simplify everything as much as possible, people in his province were wither greedy, stupid, paranoid, or one of the four different combinations of those three qualities.

 

And as for lavish displays of wealth? Kaito probably has no idea of just what his province could do when it came to that. The party that he'd met Kaito at was rather tame, to be truthful. After all, a normal party wouldn't have been so… respectable.

 

In fact, it would have been downright appalling. There was a reason that it was so unusual for someone of his age to be unmarried in his province. Most people married when they were around five years younger than him, and those were caused by one of three things. The most common was when your typical Alpha brute bought out some Omega or Beta from a family who was of a lower class than theirs. A less common method was an arranged marriage. Those were few and far between nowadays. Mainly because of the gossip in the town. It would be hard for two families to keep on even terms for long enough to ensure that the marriage could still feasibly take place and bring benefits to all of the families involved. And even if that happened, either the bride or the groom could end up killing the other half of the relationship, whether out of hatred or revenge or because the benefits had been short-lived, the list of causes was endless.

 

What was less common but was gradually becoming more and more prevalent, was that a couple married because one of the parties had gotten knocked up.

 

Wine flowed even faster than water in this town, as well as sumptuous feasts. Those were the only reasons he hadn't found some way to simply not attend the balls, the food and drink always made up for it. It was a lot easier for him to socialize when he was drunk. When he was sober, he could remember just how fake and cloying everyone was, and how useless it was for him to notice that, since he was one and the same with them. The only difference was self-awareness, and a few glasses of fine wine could quickly quench that. His best memories of those parties were whenever he was able to enjoy what most reasonable people would call a stupid amount of food, while watching everyone else make complete fools of themselves. It was amazing to watch. Just a few glasses of wine could make the most distinguished people into some of the most primal, uncultured slobs you had ever seen. Master manipulators turned into simpletons. People who acted like complete and utter prudes turned into some of the most promiscuous, racy people you'd ever seen.

 

He was a bit of a voyeur, he assumed, but it was hard not to watch when they were doing it right in front of you. And… Oh come on, this was not the time to get horny over nothing.

 

He sighed. “You won't understand. No one from your kingdom will, honestly. The sheer amount of cultural differences… I hardly bother thinking about it.”

 

“Is that it? You're going to give up a chance to be a better person just like that?”

 

Shuuichi turned slowly to look at Kaito, and his eyes were narrowed. “Bold of you to assume there was a chance in the first place.”

 

“Oh? And why do you think that?”

 

“Well, for one, I've basically insulted you twice at this point. As well as your kingdom. And knowing the gossip mill and how indiscriminate most people are, you've probably heard tales about my province. You said as much earlier.”

 

Kaito scoffed. “I've heard enough to be put off of that place for life. Especially those parties. They're just… They're not that bad, are they?”

 

“How bad?”

 

“...so bad that by the time the party is halfway over, at least twenty people have been involved into some sort fights, acting as if it were the dark ages and they had found a small scrap of carrion to feast on.”

 

Shuuichi's lips twitched up into a smile. “They're very interesting to watch, I assure you. Those parties always have the best wine and food, if I'm being honest.”

 

Kaito paled slightly.

 

“And the tales of people getting so inebriated on both wine and their own pheromones that they mate out in the open? Some parties provide toys just in case!”

 

Kaito turned at least three shades paler, and Shuuichi swore that he heard the coachman gag.

 

“So, really, I sincerely doubt anyone would want to look twice at me after hearing that about my province. What's the point of changing? I wouldn't want to lie about how I really am.”

 

“People, provinces, and entire kingdoms can change. Not everyone from a terrible place is terrible.”

 

“Is that how you think of it?”

 

“The apple can fall from the tree, and from there it can keep rolling.

 

“Besides, you were just about the only Omega at that party who wasn't staring at me as if I was going to be their last meal on earth.”

 

Shuuichi couldn't help but laugh at that. “You're kidding!”

 

“I'm serious. Not only that, but you're smart. You're just lazy and haven't been able to love up to your potential because of your environment.”

 

“Hey…” it wasn't like he could deny it, but…

 

Kaito just gave him a look that struck two feelings in Shuuichi. One was irritation, and the other was embarrassment.

 

“Well… I mean…” he huffed, slumping down more in his chair. If he said anything more, it wouldn't do him any good. This was a battle that was rigged to make him lose right from the start. “Fine… I'll. I'll… try.”

 

It wasn't like he had any other choice by this point… Maybe Kaito would get off his case if he just said it? A small spark of selfish hope sparked up in his chest, and he clasped his hands together. His legs rubbed against each other slightly, and he turned to look outside the window again.

 

“That's the spirit!” Oh, God, he could hear the smile in Kaito’s voice. “Don't worry if it seems hard at first, though. Change is always difficult at first.”

 

It was at that moment that Shuuichi realized that he'd fucked up, royally. The sound of determination in Kaito’s was terrifying.

 

He slowly turned to look at Kaito, and he knew he'd been played like a fiddle.

 

Kaito had that look of determination on his face that was only seen on people who would chase after ideals wight until their last breath. The look that all people who changed the world for the better had on their faces.

 

And that gleam in his eye told Shuuichi that he was not getting out of this anytime soon.

 

It took all Shuuichi had to not start to shake. He'd royally fucked himself over at this point.

 

He started dreading the moment that they would exit from the portal realms.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unexpected turn of events.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *peeks out of doorway* Hewwo? Hewwo? Mm, okay, I'll stop. I've edited the previous chapters slightly in order to get rid of various errors and attempted to smooth out the characterization on this story. You can re-read them if you'd like, but they're very minor changes. 
> 
> Also, I'm afraid that I might have gotten too off-canon with this story, however, I I'm considering adding some sort of tag that stated that everyone is out of character to some extent to avoid confusion. 
> 
> Apart from that... This is more of a silly and relaxed chapter, so I hope you enjoy it!

**CHAPTER SEVEN**

Shuuichi couldn't help but stare outside the window like an awestruck child. 

 

To put it simply, the Luminary Kingdom was beautiful. Everything seemed to have bright, rich colors, and everything seemed so… so… incredibly inviting. He wouldn't say that his province of origin was that closed off, but… In comparison to what he was seeing now? It was. 

 

It was obviously the beginning of the outskirts of the Luminary Kingdom, due to the fact that he couldn't see any buildings yet. This particular area looked like a large, beautifully lush meadow, with long, lush grass aplenty and large patches of flowers. He could also see a few hills in the distance. 

 

(It was extremely childish, but… he really felt like going out to smell those flowers. Maybe walk around barefoot in the grass too, if he got the chance.)

 

To put it bluntly, it was a nice change of pace from the boring stone walls that he'd already memorized the patterns and textures of years ago. 

 

It had been so long since he'd ever truly been allowed to freely wander around on his own, and he couldn't help the rush of excitement that flowed through him at the thought of roaming around the area. The sky was a calming creamy blue, with only a few light, puffy-looking clouds dotting its surface. The sunlight looked so warm and inviting as well… 

 

Maybe this was just because he was in a new place for the first time in years, but he swore that he felt his mana getting a little more active than it usually was, sending phantom tingles over his skin, filling him with excitement that was almost childlike. 

 

“You like it already?”

 

Shuuichi turned around to look at Kaito’s knowing expression. 

 

Like it? Understatement of the year. He wanted to run barefoot in the grass, dive into a patch do flowers, maybe even just relax a little in the sun…

 

“...yes. I like it.” He couldn't help the small flush of warmth that flowed over his cheeks as he said it. 

 

“We don't have to go to the castle in the carriage, you know,” Kaito said, smiling. “We can walk there.”

 

“Really?” Shuuichi's heart leaped in anticipation, and he felt himself leaning closer to Kaito instinctively. 

 

“I know the way to the castle by heart, you'll be safe, I promise. Even if you get tired of walking, I can always carry you.” The little sparkle in his eyes told Shuuichi that he was just teasing, but even so… 

 

His cheeks flushed even more. “How bold!”

 

“Bold? Weren't you just describing how orgies are organized in your provinces just a few minutes ago?”

 

“I-” He quickly stopped, then came in from a new angle. “That's not the same thing!”

 

“Aww, are you shy?” The teasing drawl in Kaito's voice made him feel a little more embarrassed, but also a little bit… pleased? 

 

What was that supposed to mean? 

 

“Hey!”

 

“It's okay to be shy, you know.” Kaito wasn't letting up.

 

“One more word and I'm jumping out of this carriage!” They both knew it as a joking threat. 

 

It was almost comical how quickly his bad mood had lifted when they'd come out of the portal. Peaceful surroundings did help alleviate bad moods after all. 

 

“If you want to do that, can we at least make the proper preparations first?”

 

“...fine,” Shuuichi said. 

 

With that, the carriage soon came to a stop, and the doorframe glowed as it opened. Ah, the great convenience of magic. 

 

Shuuichi stepped out first, and the first thing that he did was take a deep breath. He could smell the flowers and the grass almost immediately. The scents of the flowers combined to make a floral scent that was almost intoxicating, and he admitted to himself that he was having a little fun guessing what flowers were in the meadow. The grass itself also had a rather pleasant scent, and it served as a nice undercurrent to the smell of the flowers. 

 

It was almost entrancing, and he found himself tuning out whatever discussion Kaito was having with the carriage driver. His legs started moving on their own, and before, and before he knew it he was wandering around the large meadow aimlessly, wondering if he should actually try and track down one of the flower patches or just lie down in the grass. 

 

It was so peaceful, and he felt so, so free. 

 

With a start, he realized that this was in part due to the fact that he was wearing the sundress. His normal dresses were definitely exquisitely made, absolutely no one with a brain would be able to fault them, but they were confining. They were constricting. Even when the fabric was light it would be piled on in layers, holding him down and limiting his movements. 

 

Hmm, layers… that sounded like… cake. 

 

It was a random impulse, a connection he would only make when he was half drunk and watching the beginning of some surreal looking fight, or bored out of his mind. 

 

Cake… Would the people in his home province see him as cake? The joke was still running, after all.  

 

Most people were assigned stupid nicknames, for the most ridiculous reasons. 

 

“Oh, look what the cat dragged in,” they would say, pointing to a girl who seemed to have a never-ending supply of boyfriends and girlfriends each week.

 

They would sneer, “There he goes again, stumbling around, the goat.” Or they would coo, “Oh, she looks like a fucking oyster in that dress!”

 

Sometimes the descriptions could get outlandish. He vaguely remembered that one Beta who ran a fish farm, or at least had run one three years ago. Some people had gone out of their way to buy a book that detailed all kinds of fish, just so they could call him a different species every day. 

 

…betta fish. He loved that one. The guy had nearly had an aneurysm when that one was used. Shuuichi snickered. That had been the day of some very, very interesting fights. 

 

His mother was right on this one, his generation was full of idiots. It was a silly little tradition that only really made an appearance when people were either drunk or high on something. It had honestly become a long-running joke that people clung to for no reason. 

 

But he'd never heard someone described as a cake. Was it that it was decided that no one was sweet enough to be one, or overlooked since it was one of the more common food items that they didn't overindulge in? It was obvious. The layers of a dress could easily be likened to the layers of a tiered cake, especially when the ribbons were affixed just right… 

 

What kind of cake would he be? He wondered. Then he heard… something that sounded vaguely like a person yelling. Whether it was in surprise or in anger, he couldn't tell. 

 

It simply spurred him to start running. Why, he didn't really know. It kind of felt nice, if he was honest… 

 

Now… back to cake. 

 

Vanilla was out, he was definitely not innocent enough for that, and he hated the bland, boring taste of it. Hmm… butterscotch, perhaps? Chocolate could easily become too rich and overpowering and he doubted that he was either of those. 

 

(He'd had a few bad experiences with chocolate when he was younger… ) 

 

Mmm… definitely not chocolate. Red velvet, now that was the better flavor. He was making himself a little hungry… 

 

…would red velvet and butterscotch go well together? Or should he pick one or the other? He couldn't tell. Maybe he'd think of it later, he'd caught a whiff of something that smelled really interesting…

 

Wait. 

 

Something, or more probably, someone, was behind him. He could hear it. It was loud, and it sounded potentially dangerous. There was no available cover, either, and Shuuichi knew that long distance running was definitely not his forte, so he had no real hope of outrunning it. 

 

However, he could run in short bursts. 

 

Scanning the area, he didn't see anything in the immediate vicinity that he could climb on, so he had to make do with running. 

 

But his pursuer seemed to be gaining on him, and he didn't want to get caught. He'd barely started exploring this place; it had been so long since he'd ever been allowed to roam free like this. 

 

And he'd be damned if he'd give up his freedom so easily. With that, he picked up the pace, running even faster. 

 

He swore he heard someone yelling, probably something telling him to go back. He didn't pay much attention to it. 

 

He felt the familiar magical twang of someone teleporting into his general location, and he panicked for a split second. Were more people coming to chase him? He'd have to run even faster, or better yet, change direction. 

 

He'd change direction. He was sure he'd reached his peak speed by this point, and turning would throw his pursuer off. 

 

So he tilted, starting a large, slow curve turn that he was sure his pursuer would catch on to quickly. Sure enough, they caught on quickly. 

 

Then Shuuichi acted on a combination of instincts and advice departed onto him by old wives tales. 

 

He stopped right in his tracks, removed his shoes as quickly as he could, and tossed them in what he thought was the general direction of the pursuer. 

 

(The most preferable thing to do would be to hit them in the face, but he knew that he didn't have the best aim to start with, so he could only hope.)

 

A solid thump assured him that they had hit their target at the very least, so he turned in a random direction and started running again. 

 

Oddly, he could hear laughter. 

 

But he soon forgot about that when the smell of violets overtook his senses. Was there a flowerbed nearby? He couldn't wait to find out! 

 

…---... 

 

Someone shook Shuuichi's shoulder, and he pushed it away. 

 

Just five more minutes. 

 

He didn't even have anything to do today, so no one should be waking him up anyhow! And he'd been having the most wonderful dream about running through a field, too… he snuggled back into his soft blanket, hoping that whoever it was would get the message and leave. 

 

He heard soft snickering and a little cooing. That was odd. But he didn't care; he was trying to sleep. 

 

The person put their hand on his shoulder again and shook him a little harder, more firmly this time. Once again, he pushed their hand off, and to put more emphasis on his actions, he turned over. Couldn't they get the hint already? 

 

The laughter and cooing were much more noticeable now, and Shuuichi was about to open his eyes to find out what was wrong when he felt himself getting forcefully carried off of his soft bed.

 

That did it. 

 

He opened his eyes to glare at whoever it was, and quickly find out it had been Kaito who'd woken him up. Not only that, but there was a small crowd behind him, who looked as if they were trying and failing to stifle their laughter. The broad smiles. On their faces weren't doing favors for them either. He saw that a few people holding up two-way mirror orbs, and he felt like his heart had stopped.

 

Two-way mirror orbs were often used for conversations in which both parties wanted to see each other’s faces. They could also be used to broadcast events to large groups of other people if the person handling them knew what they were doing. And these were being pointed at him and Kaito.

 

This wasn’t good. This wasn’t good at all.

 

“What happened?” he asked, looking to Kaito. Speaking of that, he could sense something that was a little familiar and foreign at the same time. The feeling of someone else's magical aura was something he usually didn't pay attention to, but now it was… oddly noticeable. 

 

“And what gave you cause to use magic? I can feel your aura being a little more… overwhelming than usual,” he said. 

 

(He was still a little miffed about getting so abruptly woken up from sleep, so he wasn't letting Kaito get off easy. It was a silly little habit that he had, being needlessly petty when he was tired.)

 

“Well, you broke my nose when you threw your shoes at me--”

 

“I what?” Something like that had happened in the dream, but… this made absolutely no sense! 

 

“Threw your shoes at me.”

 

“Why would I have done that?” He didn't even remember the dream clearly enough to piece the reason together… 

 

What had he been doing, sleepwalking? 

 

“For the same reason why you ran across the entire field and practically immersed yourself in these flowers over here.”

 

Shuuichi felt horrified. “What?!”

 

“Relax, it’s fine… happens to most people who visit for the first time, honestly. Thanks to just how much magical energy is in the air, depending on how sensitive they are to it, they lose control of themselves.”

 

“Lose control?” 

 

“All you did was run around like you were having the time in your life, as well as banking yourself here. I’m guessing you like violets?”

 

Shuuichi just snarled and pushed against Kaito, but Kaito’s grip remained strong. 

 

“Hey, come on now. I think you’d prefer to get out of this place quickly, and I’m guessing you’ve already exhausted yourself, what with all that running.”

 

Shuuichi opened his mouth to argue, before settling in just closing his mouth and nodding. It was only now that he'd registered that it wasn't really a good idea to pick a fight with someone who he'd apparently socked in the face with his shoes.  

 

Instead, he sighed, closed his eyes and resting his head against Kaito’s chest.

 

(He couldn't let Kaito off easily for not warning him about this, now could he?) 

 

“H-Hey!” His plan had worked. 

 

 

“You were right, I feel really, really tired… and you’re already carrying me, so everything has come together pretty nicely, don’t you think?” He made sure to make himself sound as innocent as possible, to rile Kaito up even further. 

 

“Weren’t you just trying to push away from me just now?” From his tone of voice, he'd successfully frustrated Kaito. 

 

That was the icing on the cake. 

 

“I changed my mind.” He curled up a little closer to Kaito as well, and he could feel the Alpha tense up slightly. His scent was an appropriate mix of frustration and light confusion. 

 

Shuuichi intended on keeping it that way for as long as possible. 

 

“Are you serious?”

 

 

Shuuichi smirked as he snuggled further into Kaito’s grasp. It was actually a little… reassuring, honestly. He sighed contentedly, making it even more obvious that he didn't intend to move. 

 

“Really?” Kaito said, sounding exasperated.

 

“Mmm-hmm!”

 

At that, Kaito seemed to have resigned himself to this fate, and held him a little closer. 

 

Before he could think any further, he felt the familiar sensation of mana settling lightly onto his form, as preparation for teleportation. He soon felt the air fill up with the electric charge that individual teleportation usually brought, then a brief feeling of weightlessness, before he felt Kaito shift a little.

 

He opened his eyes, and sure enough, they were in the palace of the Luminary Kingdom. 

 

Two emotions filled him at once: awe and fear. The palace was more richly furnished than he could have ever imagined it would be. 

 

For starters, how rich did a kingdom need to be in order to have walls like these? Most of the palaces he'd visited at home had walls of simpler stone, that had visible marks of aging most of the time. These walls were pristine, and the decorations were, once again, the icing on the cake.

 

He could see flecks of gold within the dark marble, but something beyond the shiny exterior pricked at Shuuichi's instincts. He hadn't really needed to use his magic to investigate things before, but in this case, it seemed to be reaching out on its own. And what he could detect was… both fearful and awe-inspiring. 

 

The sheer about of protection spells beneath those walls was frightening. It was as if this palace had been made to withstand wars, but had gotten a fresh, innocuous-looking outer covering in order to cover that fact up. 

 

It was almost worse than some of the particularly prominent security systems back in Stoneca, his province. That brought him no small amount of discomfort. 

 

He looked at Kaito with what felt like a healthy amount of fear and disbelief. 

 

“You can sense it?” Kaito asked.

 

He nodded slowly, feeling too afraid to speak. 

 

“The South wasn't always as peaceful as it is now,” he said. 

 

“This is supposed to be one of the more relaxed kingdoms. There's wanting protection for the Royal families, and then there's something I've only detected in my province in the homes of particularly cowardly nobles. 

 

“And these spells are in-built, to boot.”

 

“What can I say? My ancestors highly valued their security.”

 

“That's putting mildly.”

 

“And yet you've encountered this kind of feeling before.”

 

“My province is the kind of place that has a bunch of conspiracy lunatics who are afraid of every single thing that seems even mildly dangerous. Isn't the Luminary Kingdom supposed to be a peaceful place? “

 

“Places change over time.”

 

“That's an understatement,” he said, rolling his eyes. He couldn't really say much when it came to that. The Kirigiri Kingdom had once been a humble farming kingdom, but it now one of the most complex systems of bureaucracy that the South Region had ever seen. 

 

Change. It was often drastic. 

 

But if the Luminary Kingdom had one been a warrior kingdom, it wasn't so surprising that it had so much magic in the air. Most places that had been places where large changes had taken place often had a lot of magical energy in the air. He faintly recalled something about people who had been born in such areas usually being unable to tell just how overwhelming the atmosphere the loved in actually was. 

 

However, it took a lot of magical energy to have such a profound effect on people like what had happened to him earlier… so the Luminary Kingdom was either a natural hotspot thanks to the presence of several magical ley lines converged in the area, or magic was heavily concentrated there because several magic users were born there. 

 

Both options brought an uneasy feeling to his stomach.

 

Not only that, but the rich furnishings of the palace were slightly unnerving. That either meant that the rulers were the same is the ones back home, who taxed their citizens to a near-suffocating degree, in order to pay for a lavish lifestyle they didn’t deserve, or the entire kingdom was very, very well-off.

 

It was most likely the second option, and that sent unease through Shuuichi.

 

“Are you okay?” Kaito asked. Shuuichi looked up at him, at his slightly worried expression, and nodded.

 

“I assume so.” He needed to really think about what he had gotten himself into. “Can you show me to my room?” He was hoping that his nervousness wasn't showing in his voice. 

 

“Already?” He'd either failed in that department, or Kaito was more observant than he'd initially thought.

 

“I need to think over a few things.” he squirmed a little in Kaito's arms.

 

Kaito leveled him with a look, then sighed. “I’d ordinarily tell you not to worry about all of the social and political intrigue nonsense, but… in this case, you kind of have to.”

 

Shuuichi scowled at Kaito, before redirecting his attention to his thoughts. 

 

 

“I already screwed up earlier today… this isn’t good.”

 

“The magic thing? Don’t worry about it.”

 

“No. Earlier, with the communication orbs.”

 

“That’s fine, you know. The reason why that didn’t go over well was because you didn’t really put it well. You were right, it did take a lot of workarounds after you literally fucking collapsed--”

 

“I’m sensitive to loud noises that come out of the blue!” Shuuichi turned to look at Kaito, who had a smug expression on his face.

 

“--the point is, you just need to be less pushy and abrasive.”

 

“I’m neither of those!” Shuuichi knew he was playing right into Kaito’s hands at this point, but he couldn’t help it.

 

“Oh, really?” Indeed, he'd fallen for it, hook, line and sinker. 

 

But he wasn't going to be taking it lying down. “You’re infuriating.”

 

“Most people say that; I consider it a compliment by this point.”

 

Shuuichi scoffed. “Arrogant Alpha.”

 

“Pushy Omega.”

 

Shuuichi huffed, rolling his eyes, stifling the smile that was creeping onto his face. “Pushy? You haven’t seen anything yet. Whenever I actually want to go to a ball, I make fresh hell for the servants. Try not to hold any interesting parties, or else you’ll really know the definition of pushy.”

 

(Interesting or not, he'd make sure to be as difficult as he possibly could. They'd be exhausted of him within the first ten minutes, he guaranteed it.) 

 

Kaito scoffed. “I’m sure you can’t compare to Kaede.”

 

That name was familiar, but something escaped him. “Kaede? Kaede who?”

 

“Akamatsu.”

 

Something clicked.

 

“She’s the pianist, isn’t she? The now-famous pianist who played for the king of the Novoselic Kingdom before his daughter succumbed to despair, overthrew him, and surrendered the kingdom to the Enoshima Empire? She’s a high-ranked noble in the Hope Empire Alliance, is she not? A key player in the entire organization, at least here in the South Region.”

 

“Who gave you her dossier?” it was obviously a joking question, but Shuuichi couldn’t help but take it seriously.

 

“Mmm… first heard of her from a little gossip from the servants, then a little prying at a party and a little wine and food later, I coaxed it out of some Alpha brute who was trying to get into my pants.

 

“He was an idiot, but not concerning things that he logically should have no business dabbling in. Whenever you get a little wine into him, he talks until you get sick of him.”

 

“So that’s where you get your information. The common grapevine.”

 

“Common or not, it’s reliable. And easy.” 

 

“Easy, huh?”

 

“It's easy when you know what you want, and what you're doing. It took a couple of years of practice, but it's been worth it.”

 

Kaito looked at him skeptically. “Just remember, not everyone is plotting to kill you, or smear your reputation, okay? Not here, at least.”

 

Shuuchi rolled his eyes, pressing in closer to Kaito. “I know, I know. People here are supposed to be nice and agreeable, until I do something to offend them, after which I would quickly be treading across thin ice. I remember, and believe me, after what happened earlier today… I don't want to cross anyone anytime soon.” his eyebrows furrowed. In fact, for the next couple of days, I'll probably be dealing with more backlash from back home.”

 

Kaito shook his head. “Your province is so cut-throat at times, it's not even funny. How do people survive in that place?”

 

“When in Towa, act like the Towans,” Shuuichi said. “Become your enemy in order to subvert their strategies. It's not that bad when you find the right balance for everything. Really,” he added at Kaitos skeptical expression. 

 

“Do I really need to mention what happened this morning as an example of one of the obvious downsides of that? As soon as someone starts acting according to that kind of closed system, they end up closing themselves out of a lot of different opportunities.

 

“That, or they end up insulting people they're not familiar with, whether intentionally or otherwise.”

 

That struck an uncomfortable chord in Shuuichi, and his heart twisted sharply. This morning was… honestly a prime example of that. Despite how much his internal moral compass (if it could even be called that) didn't like even considering that option, it was the only respectful thing he could do by this point. 

 

He held back a grimace as he remembered it. He hadn't really put forth a good impression, and that was putting it lightly. He probably wasn't fully obligated to apologize - Kaito seemed like one of those people who took “let the sleeping dogs lie” to heart - but… he had to start somewhere. 

 

Looking at it in completely practical terms, it wasn't a good idea for one to insult the person who was taking them in without much of a compensation. Especially considering that he knew very well that he personally wasn't one of the most pleasant people to deal with. 

 

He couldn’t just leave the matter alone like that; it would be insensitive.

 

He might as well apologize. 

 

“Kaito?” 

 

“Mm-hmm?”

 

There was no dancing around it. Out with it, no matter how uncomfortable it seemed. “I'm sorry about what I said earlier, in the morning. I… wasn’t trying to offend you with what I said. I’m guessing that the humor was lost because my province doesn’t exactly have a line that distinguishes between offensive and neutral humor.” 

 

Kaito smiled. “Don’t worry about that… I overreacted, if I’m being honest. Things got cleared up a bit in the carriage earlier. Your province does have a very… interesting sense of humor.”

 

Shuuichi laughed. 

 

“And, out of all the people from insular places I’ve encountered… you’re not the worst.”

 

“Oh, really?”

 

“Your province is actually a step up from a few I've heard of. At the very least they admit that vices exist, and that almost everyone is neck-deep in them over there. It's almost pitiful to see some of the other ones deny blatant corruption, try to conceal it under convoluted laws or customs.”

 

“Oh, those hypocrites.” Shuuichi rolled his eyes. “Nobody likes those people. It's a universal sentiment, and believe me it's rare to see them around my province nowadays. Back when I was little, a few missionaries from those holier-than-thou places came around… within a day of their arrival, people were hurling buckets of urine at them, to say how disagreeable they made themselves to be.”

 

“Are you serious? Literal buckets of piss?”

 

“What? Is the image of several people willingly pissing into a single bucket in order to chase out those guys not bad enough? Back in the days of my grandmother, they would literally go and collect manure from the pastures to throw at them. Consider it a step up.”

 

He couldn't help but snicker at Kaitos expression. When he'd been younger, she had often regaled him with tales of the olden days. That particular story had had him in stitches for hours afterward. 

 

“Be grateful that only happened in the rural regions, really. The nobility was still busy sleeping off a series of particularly lavish parties.”

 

Kaito just shook his head, and Shuuichi practically dissolved into laughter. 

 

 “You're fucking unbelievable, you know that?”

 

“I'll take that as a compliment.” Shuuichi couldn't help the smug smile on his face by this point. 

 

“I should have guessed that one, shouldn't I?” Kaito seemed like he'd realized the same thing. 

 

“Mmm hmm!” 

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Shuuichi has a long inner monolog about various things, and and culture shock pops in early, in the form of different clothing options.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one of the chapters where I asked myself what I was thinking. This little clothes debate probably has no real reason to be here, but I ended up adding it anyway. 
> 
> If magic can let them have magically-powered psuedo-phones, then jeans shouldn't be *too* ridiculous, right? :')

**CHAPTER EIGHT**

It had taken a while, thanks to the fact that they hadn't been able to stop talking along the way, but they’d reached Shuuichi’s room, which had turned out to be a very lavish guest suite. After a little more talking, Kaito had left, telling him that he could entertain himself however he’d liked. His formal introduction to the public would be in three week’s time, but he could still choose to make himself more known beforehand.

 

It would win him more of the public’s support, that was for sure. But he wasn’t sure he was actually going to actively pursue that potential action.

  
After that, Shuuichi had quickly gone to sleep, even though it had only been late afternoon. He hadn’t felt hungry, and he considered himself to have an admirable talent for being able to fall asleep for long periods of time when he had nothing to do.

 

He’d woken up around an hour ago, and after taking a nice, comforting bath, he’d been occupying himself with a book. But now, he felt like really observing the room he’d be staying in.

 

It had a rather calming ambience, if he did say so himself. The carpets and curtains were in shades of deep blue one could observe in the night sky, and the stone was an inky shade of blue, almost black, with flecks of silver in its surface. He smiled. Agarithia stone. That was definitely part of the reason why he felt so comforted. These stones had raw natural magic running through them, and that natural magic could be harnessed to create a devastatingly strong magical barrier that protected its inhabitants from harm. It primarily stopped magical attacks.

 

It seemed that the stone was common in the Luminary Kingdom as well. He'd gotten used to seeing only a few sections of the walls back home made with Agarithia; never an entire wall, became his clan hadn't been rich enough for that. However, there had been enough of it that for an attack to breach its defenses, the caster would have to be at a near godlike level. That sort of magical power wasn't often found in his province, so his family had been safe. Even the peasants would at least have some old heirlooms crafted out of the stone, used to offer some small measure of protection against intruders.

 

He hadn't seen entire walls made out of Agarithia before, and this indicated a very, very deep pocket. However, seeing the concentration of magic in the very air he breathed, it could be a simple necessity. People, no matter their power level, could decide to turn and attack others at any time, and prevention was better than cure.

 

(He wondered what the walls in the other hallways had been made of. That had been a solid black with golden flecks, and its aura felt vastly different than Agarithia stone. Whatever it was, it was definitely stronger, and that was an unsettling thing to comprehend. Where he was from, Agarithia was known as the stone which could could spell the difference between life and death for anyone who was using it. It was almost a legendary stone, and when he really thought about it, it was simply sheer luck that the South Region happened to have it in abundance. Luck that no one really cared about taking for granted in this current atmosphere of a potentially impending war.)

 

Looking at the furniture, it was evident that metal was preferred over wood. And that runes were engraved onto most of the furniture. Shuuichi's eyes furrowed, and he reached out to touch the bedpost, his fingers tingling with magic.

 

It was wrought iron.

 

 _Demons?_ That was the first thought that sprang to his mind. In fact, looking over these runes… yes. Most of them did ward against evil spirits and infernal magic.

 

Things which the North Region and the Enoshima Empire were infamous for.

 

It was a bit of a dampener on the pleasant mood he'd had earlier, but it was better to know that he was being well-protected from that sort of miserable fate. He wouldn't be averse to joining a harem, but one under Junko Enoshima herself? Never. Why would she have even sought him out in the first place? Even if his ability was as important as Kaito said it was, the fact that he was obviously untrained should logically have been a deal breaker to anyone with an iota of common sense.

 

Not only that, but this was Junko Enoshima. She did things to the extreme, and she never did things without purpose. And even though most of her notoriety came from her obsession with despair, the less well-circulated ones were…

 

Unsavory.

 

There was a reason why she was called the Cursed Temptress, after all. He shivered. If his province was debauched, her entire kingdom was an entire circle of hell, if not more than one combined. When her subjects weren't crippled with fear or driven delirious with despair… oh God.

 

He shivered. The only ones who really had an advantage in that kind of madness were those in the higher ranks, and it was said to be a whirlwind of insanity once you managed to reach that level.

 

One moment could be two people calmly discussing over something, the next could moment could bring those same two people practically tearing out each other's throats in the throes of wrath.

 

More than a few deaths had been attributed to the fact that those who had died were perfectly capable of defending themselves, but too slothful to do so, or, worse, had been eager and willing to let themselves get killed like mere cannon fodder.

 

Greed was seen in how harems were stockpiled like how corrupt money-lenders stocked cash. It overlapped with gluttony and lust so often that they were nigh-indistinguishable from one another if you observed or heard about their actions for a while.

 

Pride was seen in how they would carry themselves, bragging about all of the atrocities they had committed, with no shame or decency. Now, Shuuichi wasn’t personally against murder. Sometimes it was necessary because of a number of deciding external factors, but there was a very, very broad line between murdering because it needed to be done and murdering others as a pastime.

 

Decency… oh dear lord. If at least one of those rumors were true, a single one of their so-called orgies put his entire province to shame, and not in a good way. At the very least, in his province, they kept everything indoors, and as… consensual as possible, most of the time. Over there? It was disgusting. People could just tear a person there, and take them by force, in the middle of the fucking street…

 

It made Shuuichi feel sick of he ever ruminate over it for too long. Being an Omega didn't really help much in that regard, at all.

 

Envy was seen in they could never, ever be contented with what they had, how so many lives were lost just because someone couldn't simply be content with what they had, and that they felt that they had to kill someone else in order to steal their belongings, or usurp their class in the social standing… it was disgusting.

 

Gluttony was something else entirely. People would cram themselves full of food to the point that people swore that they were using magic in order to retain everything within their bellies. Either that, or like greed, they would stockpile money like dragons.

 

Shuuichi himself didn’t particularly agree with the overly-pious, hypocritical priests, but he could safely agree with them that the Enoshima Empire was why boundaries had to be made. There was freedom to do what you wanted without unneeded suppression and persecution, and then there was… _that_.

 

Recalling all of that definitely made him feel a lot less contented and happy and a bit more agitated. He wanted to do something that wasn’t simply ruminating over how he’d narrowly avoided potential slavery in a place where life was tossed around without a care.

 

He sighed, shaking his head a little. He wanted to do something that would take his mind off of this. He wanted to actually talk to someone, or just do something. But since he was in an unfamiliar kingdom, it wasn’t like he had anything to actually do--

 

* _Pop!_ *

 

A note appeared on a table in front of him, as if prompted. He stood up and picked it up. Underneath it was a flat glass contraption that almost looked like an empty makeup container, except for the fact that it was rectangular, had no hinges, as if it was a small, closed block.

 

That, and the fact that it was made out of fucking glass.

 

He picked it up and it immediately turned a deep blue with gold patterns, and a projected screen appeared some distance above it. He blinked before narrowing his eyes, scrutinizing it closely, and soon realized that it was a map of the castle.

 

The first thing he noticed was that it didn’t seem to be complete. Then he saw the little labeling tag slightly outside the diagram: Guest Floor. He blinked, then looked around a little bit. He saw himself, a blue-gold dot in a room. There were other dots that he faintly recognized the colors of. Other potential victims who were had been moved from the Kirigiri Kingdom. He looked them over again, lingering on those he didn’t recognize, feeling both interested and bothered.

 

The ones that he did recognize held little for him. It was a case of mutual dislike most of the time, if not hatred, and he dreaded the day or time that he would have to see them again.

 

(Yet another thing his family had managed to spoil for him, really. They had quite the… wonderful reputation around the province, so as soon as he'd been born, he'd been lumped in with the worst of it. Of course, that wasn't saying that the blame rested, on his family alone. He knew very well that there were times he'd deliberately provoked people against him, to their detriment.)

 

(When the apple fell from the tree, it didn't necessarily roll away. Sometimes it landed right under the tree’s shadow, and, deprived of sunlight, rotted, turning into nothing more than nutrients for the tree. Or becoming a part of the tree, if you were someone with a more delicate mindset. Either way, it made no difference.)

 

Whatever the case, there was no real need to dwell on that now.

 

He put the glass down, and the screen disappeared. Yet the glass retained his colors, the blue and gold swirling like ink diffusing through water.

 

It was a personalized map, then. Interesting that it used glass and not paper.

 

He looked at the letter next. It was a generic visitor’s note, whose only purpose was to tell him that if he wanted to explore the castle, he could. Clothes had already been provided in the wardrobe for him to wear, if he felt inclined to dress up in something other than what he came in.

 

Again, the wonders of magic were on display. Clothes could be resized very easily with magic, and some people who had magical talents so inclined could easily materialize all kinds of clothes from thin air, or sew fabrics with ease. It was an uncommon talent, but they were greatly sought after, and they often became highly esteemed tailors and seamstresses.

 

And in cases like these, it was a life-saver, thanks to the abrupt nature of this excursion, he didn't have any clothes with him except the ones he'd gotten yesterday. It might be a good idea to check the wardrobe, though. He'd heard that a few kingdoms had acquired an esoteric taste in clothing, and judging from how Kaito dressed out of strictly formal occasions, he was sure the Luminary Kingdom was part of them.

 

He just needed to know how bad it truly was before he actually needed to dress up and do something. Do something urgent, anyway because he wasn't intending to sit in his room for the rest of the day.

 

(He'd still stay in his room for most of it… hehe just felt a little restless, and a bit of walking might so him a bit of good right now, was all.)

 

It was decided, then.

 

He went over to his wardrobe, and opened it. His eyes widened, and he felt as if some of the air had been violently knocked from his lungs.

 

This was definitely worse than he'd initially thought. Far worse than he'd thought. Almost horrifying, really.

 

He wasn't what you would call a fashionista, or even all that vain, really. But in a case such as this, he… couldn't help but feel incredulous. And a little bit threatened, as well.

 

Did the people here always dress so… informally? There were long-sleeved shirts and short-sleeved shirts, more of the latter than the former, made out of cotton, he could tell. There were a few skirts and dresses that were made of lighter material, which, unlike most of his usual wardrobe, weren’t layered.

 

He looked forward to wearing those, obviously. They weren't the points of contention.

 

And then there were… the pants. He hadn’t worn actual trousers since… since he was around two years old? That was so long ago, it almost wasn't humorous to think about. Even back then, he'd preferred wearing skirts and dresses. They usually seemed more comfortable than pants, and due to his inactive lifestyle, he hadn't really been able to appreciate pants all that much.

 

Not only that, but as an Omega, it was expected that he'd wear dresses more often, especially in relation to formal parties and things like that. Besides, whenever he'd get married, he would be expected to stay around the house and not so much in terms of active work. Pants were usually considered to be clothing meant for active people, and mainly worn in professions where people would move around a lot. Thus, skirts and dresses were considered more appropriate, even though half the time he just lounged in his room his bathrobe.

 

The number of pants the wardrobe had was concerning. That either meant it was the normal fashion to wear pants, or… His lifestyle wouldn't be as quiet and meandering as it had been before.

 

He wouldn't consider himself out of shape, but… He gulped, shifting uneasily. Not only that, but most of them were made of the same unfamiliar material he'd seen Kaito wearing. It was blue, and looked rough and sturdy.

 

It reminded him of worker's uniforms, and his stomach churned slightly. Looking down, he realized with a jolt that most of the shoes were… unfamiliar. And there were a few that looked like… well. The only description he could think of was... nicer-looking versions of the boots that the gardeners wore. Whether they were of a higher quality or not, he couldn't shake the uneasy feeling they gave him.

 

He… He wouldn't call himself spoiled, no… but something told him that staying in the Luminary Kingdom would be a lot more than he'd originally bargained for.

 

For now, he would just stay in his room. Read another book, practice magic, or even sleep. Yes, those would be much better alternatives to embarrassing himself like that…

 

He quickly shut the wardrobe, and pretended not to notice the way he exhaled in relief, how the tension in his stomach suddenly alleviated.

 

There was a nicely stocked bookshelf, which was conveniently located near the back of the room. Some reading would be nice, he supposed. There was also a nice, soft looking armchair he'd really like to melt into for a little while.

 

Looking over the selection of books, he found that, surprisingly, they weren't just the standard romance fare that was often packed into Omega guest rooms. These books promised tales of mystery and intrigue instead. In other words, his kind of book.

 

The best part was that he didn't know the titles or authors, so he could expect something new, and different. So he plucked a medium-sized volume and looked around quickly went over to the armchair, curling up in it and quickly starting to read.

 

\---

 

He'd only gotten halfway through the book when someone knocked on his door.

 

He remembered that just before he'd gone to sleep the previous night, he'd cast a sealing spell on the door. It had been a habit, ever since he was little. Even if the door was already locked, he would cast a sealing spell on it. It wasn't a thing that had been drilled into him in his childhood. On the contrary, he'd drilled it into himself. It was a thing of necessity, after all.

 

(Not all of his grandmother's stories had been nice and reassuring, for a start. And his family's reputation was one that brought a certain amount of risk to you, no matter your age. It made a person a bit paranoid about their safety at the best of times, and a miserable wreck at the worst.)

 

Casting a sealing spell on the door regularly not only made sure that no one would think of bothering him, but it made sure that everything was quiet by blocking out all external noise.

 

(It was also a deterrent to a few potential robbers. Maybe not the best defense against murderers, but the sealing system at his room at home was… much more secure than the one he'd cast here. He didn't want to put himself as a paranoid fool already, after all. He needed to scrounge up some semblance of a reputation.)

 

(Apart from that, something told him that the stone in the walls of this palace might be more effective than whatever he could hope to cast.)

 

He lifted his hand and concentrated a little. His fingertips tingled with magic briefly, and a short twang signified that the seal had broken itself.  

 

He heard the door handle turn, and Kaito's scent filtered into the room. He looked up from his book.

 

Kaito was wearing a magenta short-sleeved shirt and those blue pants with boots again. And the wide smile on his face was setting off alarm bells in Shuuichi's mind.

 

“You haven't gotten dressed?”

 

Shuuichi shook his head, trying to suppress the scowl that threatened to pass over his face. Already, he didn't like the implications of that. He didn't want to see that wardrobe again for as long as possible.

 

“How come? One would've thought you'd be eager to start assessing the social climate over here, especially considering the circumstances.”

 

Shuuichi gulped.

 

“So, any specific reason why you haven't left your room yet?”

 

“I decided to have a little change of pace. To relax a bit before actually… venturing out.” That was one of the weakest excuses he'd ever given in his life.

 

However, it was still better than admitting he didn't know what to call half of his fucking wardrobe.

 

“Are you sure?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“You do know that we've stocked your wardrobe with enough clothes to last for a good long while, right? Or are they not to your taste?”

 

Shuuichi felt his cheeks start to burn, and just for a moment, he cursed his pale skin and his predisposition to blushing needlessly.

 

“They're… fine,” he said, barely managing to avoid choking on his own saliva in the middle of the sentence.

 

“Then what's wrong?” Kaito sounded a little inquisitive, but there was something playful in his tone that Shuuichi couldn't quite place.

 

“Nothing.” Best to keep things as brief as possible to avoid any more needless blushing.

 

“Are you sure about that?” Again, that oddly innocent-sounding inquisitive tone!

 

“Positive.” He tried to keep his tone as neutral as possible, and fix his eyes firmly on the book he'd been reading beforehand.

 

“You've looked into the wardrobe already, haven't you?”

 

As if his body was reacting on instincts, he nodded. Immediately after, his hands tightened on the book. God damn his reflexes!

 

“And you're still not dressed? And there isn't a flurry of clothes on the floor signifying that you've gone through them?”

 

More and more, Shuuichi felt as if he was falling into an inexorable trap.

 

“Not all Omegas are clothes-hungry, you know? Some people are content with just looking!” He… probably gave himself away right there with the defensive tone.

 

Kaito's smile confirmed his suspicions, and he could feel his stomach sink.

 

“Might there be any articles of clothing that you need a bit of… an explanation for?”

 

At that, Shuuichi knew that he'd fallen directly into the trap. He buried his face the book, trying to drown himself in its plentiful pages, and he heard Kaito laugh.

 

“What brought this about, anyway?!” he yelled, muffled by the book he had buried his face in.

 

“A bunch of nobles being scared out of their minds when they saw their wardrobes is what happened.”

 

Shuuichi looked up. “Are you serious?”

 

“They screamed so loudly that the castle almost thought they were under attack.”

 

“Oh my God…” He had no idea whether he should be happy that he wasn't the only one personally affronted by this, or ashamed that they'd have had the audacity to scream, and declare that the nobles of his province were cowards.

 

“But still. I'm not trying to mock you or anything. You're taking the situation pretty well, all things considered.” The mirth in his voice was obvious, and Shuuichi's pride wasn't taking it well.

 

“Very funny. So, O good Prince, what do I owe this esteemed visit to?”

 

“You speak in an unnecessarily formal manner when you're angry? That's interesting.”

 

He was… he was mocking him!

 

In that moment, Shuuichi felt like he wanted to throw the book across the room and hit Kaito square in the face with it.

 

He glowered at Kaito instead. “What do you want?”

 

“I just needed to ask you a question.”

 

“Then ask it!” His temper seemed to have gotten a much shorter fuse lately. He aimlessly wondered why.

 

“When was the last time you even wore normal pants?”

 

“...when I was a small child.”

 

Kaito’s eyes widened in surprise. “Really? That was a long while ago.”

 

“No shit,” he said dryly, sitting up.

 

“Using the great old art of sarcasm, are we?”

 

“Guess.”

 

“Very funny.”

 

“Indeed. Although, I didn't warm up to skirts and dresses immediately, I was told. They didn’t agree well with a hyperactive toddler who wanted to run around everywhere, I suppose. Eventually, I stopped going out and mainly began staying indoors. Lessons soon followed after that, and after that came all the stupid intricacies of navigating through the social climate…

 

“Wearing skirts and dresses was honestly better than wearing pants, since I’d end up sitting around most of the time. They got tiring after a certain point. I especially like winter dresses.” The material used to make them was always so thick and soft that he almost always managed to practically melt into a chair and do as little as possible. It was so comfortable and reassuring to feel the weight of those skirts by this point.

 

(It could make some of the more… ridiculous parties feel utterly surreal. Imagine practically melting into a nice, large chair, contentedly nibbling at some sweet little entree dish, and watching two people start fighting so viciously they start screaming at the top of their voices.)

 

(And throughout the entire thing, all you can think about is how nice it would be to go to bed, or how entertaining it would be to see if you could goad the competitors to embarrass themselves.)

 

(…)

 

(Maybe there was a good reason why outsiders were usually afraid of coming back for a second visit.)

 

“And besides, when things are stripped to their bare essentials, dresses cost much less to make than pants, when you strip both of them to their bare essentials.”

 

“That’s true. But looking at all the frills and layers on most dresses you wear, those look far more expensive than a pair of pants.”

 

“Even so.”

 

“You’re not going to be able to sit and laze around for too long, you know.”

 

“The formal introduction to the public isn’t until next week!”

 

“Even so, you still need to adjust to living here. You can’t seal yourself in your room the entire time, you know.”

 

“What does this have to do with my wardrobe?”

 

“Over here, we’re… a lot more active than you’d think. Pants are more practical than skirts and dresses in that regard.”

 

Shuuichi pouted. “Do I have to?”

 

“Yes, you have to.” The patronizing tone in Kaito’s voice made Shuuichi want to head back to sleep as soon as he heard it.

 

“I don’t even know what fabric some items within the wardrobe are made out of! And you expect me to wear it?”

 

“You don’t know what denim is?”

 

“Denim?”

 

“The fabric they use to make jeans.”

 

“Jeans?”

 

“You don’t know what jeans are?”

 

“No.”

 

“You’re serious?”

 

“Yes. There is no room for joking when it comes to clothes.”

 

“I… look. What rock have you been living under?”

 

“Don’t you talk about my province like that!”

 

“I hate to say it, but it’s the truth.”

 

“You--”

 

“I’m wearing jeans right now, you know. That’s the most ironic part of this situation.”

 

What? Kaito was wearing…?

 

Oh.

 

 _Oh_.

 

_Oh, goodness gracious._

 

If anyone had asked Shuuichi what he wanted to do at that moment, he would tell them that he wanted to keel over and die, or at least fall into a deep sleep like the fairy tales often said would happen to poor, defenseless Omegas in the face of danger.

 

Except in his case, there would be no one to wake him up because his so-called prince would be busy laughing himself to death, as well as being the cause of the prolonged embarrassment-coma.

 

For goodness sakes. What did he do to deserve this?


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The clothing issues continue, and the initial discussion branches out a little.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter started going somewhere else pretty quickly, but I'm satisfied with the result.

**CHAPTER NINE**

…

 

…

 

…

 

_Itchy._

 

That was what it felt like.

 

Itchy, and far too hot.

 

He scowled at the pair of jeans he was wearing. It had, embarrassingly, taken him a little while to be able to find out how to put it on, and putting it on had been… an interesting process. Now they were on, the annoying, loud, stupidly tiny little zip was fully up, and the infuriatingly small button was done up, and the entire miniature contraption was hidden under a light blue short-sleeved shirt that was surprisingly light and comfortable.

 

If only he could say the same for the pants. If only.

 

His legs unconsciously rubbed against each other, or at the very least, tried to. Attempting to do so brought a painful reminder of the fact that there was something new between his legs that he had to adjust to.

 

He grimaced. How on _earth_ were these contraptions commonplace here? If his province was insular, then the Luminary Kingdom was also insular in its own, “progressive” way. It was said to be a place where many new inventions and ideas were brought to life, but he’d never questioned the seeming lack of actual products until now.

 

These pants were not only itchy, they were _basic_.

 

The material they were made of, denim, was a very basic, bland grey color that had little to no variation except on his thighs. Absolutely no color, except for the infuriating little black zipper and the silvery button that seemed to have been made to evade all attempts at physical contact. He recalled seeing blue versions of these things in his wardrobe, but he was unlikely to go and check again.

 

However, despite its faults, it did bear signs of good craftsmanship. Not like he'd actually go telling anybody that, though.

 

The material, though uncomfortable, seemed tough, and looked to be made in such a way that it would be virtually indestructible unless it was deliberately mutilated. He also had to admit that it did look a little nice, bland though it was. It was made purely for practicality, and it showed. There were no large, ornamental feats done with the stitching, but small, practical, durable stitches that were fairly unobtrusive. The little lines and crisscrosses of a slightly darker gray thread could easily be missed if you weren't looking out for them.

 

There were four pockets on it; two on the front of it and two on the back. That was yet another sign it was made for people who couldn’t afford to carry their belongings in bags, or even have others carry things for them. They were also… ah. He didn’t have anything to compare it to. All he could deduce was that they were made in such a way that they could fit an entire person’s hand with only very little space left over.

 

Not very surprising when he thought about it. If you couldn't afford to get a bag to carry things in, you probably didn't have much to carry in the first place.

 

And then there were the tiny loops of fabric around the top. Obviously made for a belt, but… what sort of tiny-ass belts did they _wear_ over here, then?

 

The very few belts he’d seen people wear were often studded with fake jewels (sometimes to the point of near-completely obscuring the belt itself), or with stupidly large buckles, or otherwise were generally so large they would be impossible to miss.

 

(In other words, stupidly gaudy and impractical and eye-bleeding to look at when the light struck them at just the _precisely_ wrong angle. They could be absolutely _blinding_ . He was thankful that he'd never had to suffer through wearing the contraptions. Even _his_ vanity had a limit, for God's sake.)

 

And then there were these tiny little loops that were probably for a tiny little belt that was probably stripped to its barest essentials and had no needless pomp and pageantry to it.

 

(He was thankful for that. Those fancy belts weren't just eye-bleeding; he had a heavy suspicion that they were unnecessarily weighty and unwieldy as well. Not like he'd actually know, but from the way they tacked fake jewels to those things…!)

 

The entire article of clothing screamed “utilitarian,” and Shuuichi didn't know how he felt about that. On one hand, it was slightly refreshing, not having to wear something that was unnecessarily flashy and pompous-looking. On the other hand, he felt underdressed, or almost naked, really. Wearing such light clothing was both freeing and just the tiniest bit unnerving.

 

And all of that wasn’t even taking in the shoes…

 

He grimaced. They were… comfortable. He just didn’t like looking at them, was all. He didn’t really fancy himself as much of a snob, but… they were… so…

 

He sighed.

 

The boots were nice, but… mmf.

 

He'd been taught all his life they were shoes meant for laborers and menial workers. Made out of cheap material that was either pathetically easy to ruin, or so ridiculously strong that jokes were made about them.

 

(Not to mention the fact that most boots he'd seen before were ugly, utilitarian things that were made out of _rubber_ , of all things. Hideous, was the only descriptor he had for them. It definitely didn't help that he either wore flats or full-on heels most of the time. Thankfully, he didn't have to wear the latter too often. They murdered his feet every time he had to wear them. Especially since his mother insisted they had to be at least three inches high. Five foot seven wasn't a height that was small enough to require that nonsense!)

 

Yet here he was, despite everything, wearing a pair that looked to be made out of reasonably high quality _leather_ , and barely being able to look at them.

 

In fact, his stomach turned a little at the thought of looking down to properly observe them. Unlike Kaito’s knee-length ones, he’d opted for the shorter cut; they ended around his ankles. It had been a little embarrassing to have to remember how to properly tie the laces, but apart from that, they had been easy to put on.

 

(They also looked reasonably nice, but he'd be caught dead before ever saying it aloud.)

 

All he could do was hope that the threat of Junko trying anything to get him into her twisted harem blew over quietly. He already missed his dresses and flats, and this was only the first time he was wearing these things.

 

The worst part was that he technically didn’t have to wear this. He’d deliberately chosen to wear this in order to stop Kaito from laughing his royal ass off, and he already regretted it. This would be the first and last time he would ever do something like _this_ out of spite.

 

Spite was usually a good motivator, but it had obviously worked against him in this instance. Just his luck.

 

He heard a knock at the door.

 

“Have you gotten dressed yet?” It was Kaito, as expected.

 

“What do you think?” The retort sprang from his mouth before his brain had fully processed.

 

Kaito just chuckled. “I’m taking that as a yes?”

 

Shuuichi sighed. “Yes.”

 

The door opened, and Shuuichi internally braced himself, quickly averting his gaze from the door to the wall in front of him. He heard Kaito step in.

 

Then he jumped slightly as a joking wolf-whistle came out of absolutely _nowhere_.

 

Once again, unbidden, heat rose to his cheeks.

 

“What was _that_?!”

 

Kaito chuckled. “You look good, is all I was trying to say.”

 

“You could have just _talked_.”

 

“Indeed. I simply decided not to.”

 

“Typical Alpha,” Shuuichi said, rolling his eyes.

 

“So I am. But what does that make you?”

 

“A _reasonable_ Omega,” he said, turning over to fix Kaito with a sullen glare.

 

“Mmm hmm. I believe you.” Why, oh why, did he have to have one of the most simultaneously mocking and good-looking smirks Shuuichi had ever seen in his life? He was meant to be _angry_ at him right now.

 

“Very funny, I know,” he said standing up and crossing his arms as he turned away from Kaito.

 

Kaito just chuckled. “So, you're ready to go?”

 

“Mmm,” he said, turning around slightly.

 

He knew Kaito meant well, but that wolf whistle reminded him of a few unsavory stories and experiences he'd had with a few unsavory people.

 

“Something wrong?” Was Kaito just that perceptive, or was he just that much of an open book?

 

“No, not really. Just… remembered a few experiences. It's nothing important, really.”

 

“I doubt that.”

 

He looked over at Kaito briefly. He didn't seem to be taking this as lightly as he'd hoped he would. “It's nothing.”

 

“That's what they all say.”

 

“‘They’?”

 

“It's just an expression.”

 

“Hmm. An interesting one, I'd say.” It was a weak attempt at tossing attention elsewhere, but it was still an attempt.

 

“Since when were you interested in linguistics?” Predictably, the attempt worked about as well as a ball of lead would be able to float.

 

“For goodness sakes,” he said, turning fully to Kaito, barely resisting the urge to put a hand to his forehead. “It's not important, alright? Just a few drunk idiots who didn't really do much except embarrass themselves and make sure I found a better corner of the party to hide in.”

 

Kaito frowned, and Shuuichi had to resist the urge to slam the palm of his hand into his forehead.

 

“I don't think that’s unimportant, Shuuichi,” Kaito said. His tone was a firm, and he didn’t sound as if he was going to let it go.

 

“Why would it be important? It’s nothing important. Besides, most people avoid me on principle. Some people would have told me that I should be grateful that people are paying me any attention at all.” He paused briefly, remembering a few particularly stupid comments. “Whatever the case, I never appreciated it at all.”

 

“That’s even worse!” Kaito said, sounding rather unpleasantly surprised.

 

“Worse? Than what? For goodness sakes, can you let it go already?” Shuuichi snapped, standing up, glaring at Kaito a little.

 

“No, I cannot.”

 

“Why?”

 

“The rest of your companions either look downright terrified of Alphas or just flip completely as soon as an one comes around. I wouldn’t consider that something to not be concerned about.”

 

Shuuichi turned towards Kaito, who looked surprisingly serious about this. “If you must know, I’m one of the lucky ones, really. Not too attractive, but not so plain as to turn into a complete bystander. The less scrupulous Alphas usually target people in those two categories, and I don’t fit in any of them. The most I’ve gotten is a few catcalls and some unneeded clinginess during dances.”

 

“And that’s supposed to be reassuring?” Kaito looked positively pissed off.

 

“Yes. Also, about those ones? Don’t bother. Around half of them are pansies; weak and useless. They’ve been fed all sorts of folktale nonsense about how Alphas and Omegas are supposed to act. I’ll admit, most of those stories are nonsense, but in my province… ah, sometimes reality comes a little close to fiction.” He looked down at his nails, inspecting them. It wasn’t much, but he didn’t keep his nails slightly longer than was normally allowed for nothing.

 

(It had been another habit he’d gained in his childhood. When people didn’t avoid him, they deliberately tried to push him around. In order to avoid any unnecessary incidents, he’d quickly learned how to establish a line of defense.)

 

(If that one nickname for his mother was true, he’d taken a leaf from her book. He still wondered what she’d done to deserve the title of “panther claws,” though. He wasn’t sure if he actually wanted to know, if he was honest.)

 

(Whatever the case, it had taken only five incidents before people learned how to properly avoid him. Whatever the case, he still took the precaution up until now.)

 

(Besides, he liked the look of it, anyway.)

 

That was also why he’d usually stuck to hanging around Betas. They were far less obnoxious than Alphas, and far less pushy. Speaking of Alphas… he looked up at Kaito.

 

As he’d guessed, Kaito didn’t look happy at this, but Shuuichi really didn’t want to pursue this argument. He fixed Kaito with a sullen glare, keeping it as flat as he possibly could, even in the face of Kaito’s surprisingly intimidating stare.

 

The uneasy, cloying smells of discontent and suspicion slowly leached their way into Kaito’s scent, making his normally reassuring pine and lavender scent feel a bit less comforting. Shuuichi wasn’t all that surprised; it was a common reaction of most people who somehow decided that it had been a good idea to hang around him for more than ten minutes. So, in spite of it, he kept up his sullen look.

 

Surprisingly, he won.

 

Kaito sighed, shaking his head, but not saying anything. His scent toned down to the faint, barely-noticeable scent of light discontent. Shuuichi held back a sigh. At the very least, Kaito was letting it drop. That was all he really wanted by this point.

 

Then Kaito sighed. “Can you promise me something, Shuuichi?”

 

“Mmm hmm.”

 

“If I ever make you uncomfortable, just tell me, and I’ll stop.”

 

Shuuichi blinked. Where was this coming from? This didn’t really make sense, unless Kaito was taking what he’d said so seriously…

 

“Alright,” he said.

 

Kaito nodded, and a slightly awkward pause overtook the two of them. It made Shuuichi feel a little uncomfortable, so he decided to break it.

 

“Kaito? Can I ask you a question?”

 

“Sure.”

 

“Why is denim so itchy?” It was one of the most childish things he’d ever asked, but he desperately wanted to fill the air with conversation.

 

“Itchy? How is it itchy?” Kaito sounded like he’d been thrown for a loop, which Shuuichi had been hoping for.

 

“It’s too… rough. It feels really, really strange. How do you wear this on a regular basis?” He was getting a little childish, but he couldn’t help it.

 

“You might not want to say that outside,” Kaito said jokingly, momentarily looking over his shoulder. “Most people find jeans to be very comfortable.”

 

“Comfortable?! It feels rough, and not to mention cheap!”

 

“Welcome to the Luminary Kingdom, where cheap is commonplace.”

 

Shuuichi whined, feeling as if he wanted to crawl back into bed. He could already feel his lower half overheating somewhat… and all he’d done was stand up, and only for a few minutes. How would people actually _walk_ in these things? It was horrifying to think of.

 

“Feeling uncomfortable? You can take it off if you want, you know.” Kaito was smirking.

 

Shuuichi scowled. “I’m fine,” he said, standing up. If Kaito could wear this, he could wear it, and wear it better if he so desired!

 

“You _sure_ about that?”

 

“ _Positive_.”

 

“There should be a few dresses and skirts in your wardrobe, you know. You could even request for a few changes to your wardrobe…”

 

That did it. Shuuichi walked forward, picked up the little glass hologram projector, and walked straight up to Kaito. “Let’s go.”

 

“Feisty, I see.”

 

“Very funny. Let’s go!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, what do you think about this chapter?


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If Shuuichi had known things would eventually end up as a wild goose chase, he'd have firmly burrowed himself in his bed.
> 
> Or, Shuuichi is tricked into exercising, and plot ensues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, yes... Plot devices A and B are introduced in the late part of this chapter. Plot Device C is introduced a few chapters later.
> 
> (I apologize deeply in advance if you don't like OC characters in a story, but Shuuichi's province can't exactly be represented with canon characters, I think...)

**CHAPTER TEN**

…

 

…

 

Shuuichi felt like he was  _dying_.

 

How was it _possible_ for a person to sweat this much in one day? How was it possible for pants to be so _uncomfortable_?

 

And _how_ could Kaito go on for this long without getting exhausted?

 

In fact, more importantly, _why_ were they running? Was this was supposed to be a palace tour or some form of hellish exercise class? He didn’t even know why they were actually running. It had started with Kaito taking him around the castle so he could familiarize himself with the layout of the place. They’d started out at an easy walking pace that had been accompanied by relatively light conversation, a nice change form what had happened earlier in his room.

 

During the conversation, Kaito had told him that the rest of the potential “choices” for Junko’s harem were getting their own tours, from various members of the castle staff. When he’d asked Kaito about the reason he’d bothered to personally escort him, he’d dodged the question.

 

He’d found it odd, but he hadn’t pressed. Not only because he didn’t want to start assuming things so early on, but also because Kaito had increased his speed for some reason. It went from a slow walking pace to a faster one, to speed-walking, then jogging, and then it finally morphed into some sort of full-on chase sequence.

 

And he had absolutely no idea why.

 

All he knew was that he was running behind Kaito at breakneck speed, feeling as if his body was trying to roast him alive in his clothes. The worst part was that he was barely managing to keep neck and neck with Kaito by this point.

 

But goddammit, he wasn’t going to fall behind any further, or worse, stop.

 

At the very least, he now had a valid reason to scream at Kaito to slow down. Or, more preferably, ask him what the actual fuck was going on.

 

He chose the latter option.

 

“Why are we running everywhere?!” He barely got the entire sentence out; he was so out of breath…

 

“Practice!” The reply was so impossibly cheery, Shuuichi was lucky he didn’t trip or fall flat on his face.

 

“Practice for _what_?!”

 

“Evacuation!”

 

Shuuichi swore he heard something snap somewhere. Whether physically or mentally, he couldn’t tell.

 

“Are you serious at all? _I just got here_!”

 

“The Enoshima Empire won’t wait for you to get adjusted to everything before invading, you know! You have to start training as soon as possible!”

 

“Wh-Wha--! I just barely learned the layout of this place, and now you're forcing me to _run_ through it?!”

 

“Sometimes the brain learns faster when you’re forced to adapt quickly!”

 

“What the hell are you talking about?! How is this supposed to help in any shape, form, fashion or idea?!”

 

“It’s meant to help jog your memory!”

 

“What on this green earth are you talking about!” Shuuichi was praying that that hadn’t been meant to be a pun. “Don’t tell me we’ve been running around in circles!”

 

“Hey, what wing of the palace are we at now?!” Kaito somehow managed to dodge the question with an amount of grace that almost gave Shuuichi a bad case of whiplash.

 

“What in the actual--” he cut himself off, looking around briefly. They had, either been running around in circles, or he hadn’t been paying enough attention to where Kaito had been going. Either way… “--We’re at the Lower West Wing, where the servants’ headquarters are!”

 

“Correct!”

 

“Oh, for goodness--”

 

“What’s the Upper North Wing meant for?” Once again, he was cut off before he could fully articulate his thoughts.

 

Luckily, he knew the answer to the rapid-fire question.

 

“High Council meetings, meant for the highest rank of nobles and royals, mainly used for some of the most grievous cases in the country!”

 

“Middle West Wing?”

 

For God’s sake, Shuuichi needed to take a while to actually fucking breathe! How could Kaito just _do_ that?

 

“It’s used for most general social gatherings!”

 

“Middle South Wing?”

 

His patience was getting really thin at this point… “Visitors quarters for the low-rank to mid-rank nobles! The lowest-ranked chambers in the palace!”

 

“Upper West Wing?”

 

He had no idea whether he would lose his patience or his breath first. “It’s meant for the Royal Council Meetings, meant exclusively for meetings with the various royals in the region!”

 

“See? You’ve already memorized the layout!”

 

“And the running? Can we stop now? Or else I’ll just veer off and jump through that conveniently opened window over there right about--”

 

He felt Kaito pull him forward, and he lost his balance for a split second before feeling himself braced against Kaito’s chest. He bit down the feeling of relief that blossomed through his chest and looked up at Kaito with what he hoped was a deadpan expression and not a sullen one.

 

“Are we finished yet?” he couldn’t exactly stop himself from sounding whiny; this was not only nonsensical, but it had also been extremely tiring. At the very least, he was able to catch his breath...

 

“We will be, soon enough,” Kaito said

 

“If you’re implying that I--”

 

Then he heard something.

 

It sounded like… a lot of people running in the general direction of this area. He quickly put two and two together, and he couldn’t help but feel complete and utter disbelief. Just how many people had been potential targets for Junko’s nonsense?

 

The way Kaito was smiling said it all.

 

Shuuichi could feel his stomach start to sink, but he quickly redirected his attention elsewhere.

 

All he knew was that he didn’t want a repeat of this running nonsense anytime soon.

 

“Are you serious at all in this place?” he asked Kaito, looking up at him.

 

“Depends on your definition of serious.” If this wasn’t some sort of transparent set-up for being taken on a verbal wild goose chase, he’d give up dresses for life.

 

(That definitely wasn’t fucking happening.)

 

So he decided to get as blunt as he possibly could in order to permanently cut off any such incident.

 

“This had better be a one-time thing, you know.”

 

In response, Kaito’s smile became broader. At that, Shuuichi broke out of the comfortable embrace a bit reluctantly and glared at Kaito.

 

“You _cannot_ be serious.”

 

“And what if I am?”

 

“Then I’m sealing myself in my room for the rest of the day. And when next you try and get me to do something like this, I will throw absolutely everything and anything within reach at you.” There were a lot of adequately thick books on the bookshelf after all. A few experiences with that to the face would make sure Kaito learned not to try it.

 

Kairo grimaced. “I’d prefer you not throw things at me. Getting hit in the face by those shoes was bad enough. I’d rather not have more shoes thrown at me. Or books, for that matter.”

 

Shuuichi couldn’t help the wide, close-lipped smile that took over his face. “Who said you had a choice?”

 

Kaito looked at him as if he’d sprouted a second head. This particular smile always had that effect on people.

 

Shuuichi couldn’t help the snickering that escaped him. “What’s the matter, my Prince? See something you don’t like?”

 

“How did you do that?”

 

“With my mouth and the muscles in my face.”

 

“Do it in front of a mirror and see it for yourself sometime soon. It looks pretty unsettling.” Kaito actually looked a little spooked.

 

“No, thank you, I like sleeping comfortably.” Now, back to the original statement. “And I won’t have to throw things at you if you don’t make me do this again. A simple bargain, no?”

 

Meanwhile, he could hear the others getting closer, and the scents of agitated Alphas and Betas started to filter into the room.

 

For some reason, the Omega scents seemed more placid.

 

“I’m afraid that bargain won’t be possible. Because even if you throw things at me, I can still send servants to fetch you for whatever task that would be allotted for the day. And it would be a bit more… disastrous if you started throwing things at them.”

 

Shuuichi opened his mouth to protest.

 

Someone interrupted him right when he was about to retort with the half-formed comeback he’d quickly devised.

 

“Are you serious, Saihara? We just got here, why the hell are you already trying to pull something? And on the crown prince, no less? Have you no shame?”

 

Shuuichi suddenly wanted to teleport out of the premises and seal himself within his room for the next week. His mouth closed with an audible click, and he stepped away from Kaito a little more, turning around to look for the source of this fresh disturbance.

 

He _hated_ that voice, and he hated the person that the voice belonged to.

 

Said voice belonged to Amano Misaki, one of the biggest gossips within his social circle. Everyone with a good family name knew to avoid him, and even people like himself, whose family name had been ground into the dirt a long time ago, knew to avoid him.

 

And now the aforementioned pest was now standing some distance in front of him with an insufferable smirk on his face.

 

Shuuichi looked him over. He was wearing some sort of sleeveless shirt, and short, loose pants. His black hair looked slightly disheveled, and his gaze was currently looking far too cocky for Shuuichi’s personal taste.

 

There were times when he felt like gouging those blue eyes out of the smug bastard’s face.

 

Now was one of them.

 

Shuuichi hated the guy. A _lot_. Mainly because he was a loudmouthed, outspoken, idiotic, spoiled brat.

 

Call it hypocritical of him to dislike someone who had also been raised rather… _conservatively_ , but this guy was simply… too much to handle on a good day, thoughtless of barely a few minutes after the entire chase sequence had happened.

 

“Go to hell, Amano, why don’t you?” That was a standard greeting between them by this point; Amano was one of the few people that etiquette lessons just couldn’t apply themselves to.

 

The fact that he suddenly felt extremely tired probably contributed to the dry tone of his voice. For once, exhaustion actually seemed to be working in his favor.

 

“Ah, Shuuichi, you wound me! But still, what the hell do you think you’re doing? Can’t you tell royalty from the common swine like yourself?”

 

Shuuichi could vaguely sense that other scents, both familiar and unfamiliar were getting closer, as well as some light chatter that was quickly petering out. But he decided to ignore them for now.

 

He felt his eyebrow twitch a little before firmly clamping it down with a deep scowl.

 

“‘Common swine’? Excuse me, Amano, have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately?”

 

“What did you just call me?!” Amano’s voice was hovering dangerously close to full-on Omegan-tone screeching for Shuuichi’s personal taste.

 

“I didn’t call you _anything_. I simply deflected your own insult back at you. Is that too much for your feeble little brain to comprehend? Or do you need to go running back crying to your mother?”

 

He could feel a satisfied smile creep onto his face as Amano’s scent soured. He drew back a bit.

 

(He’d quickly learned to have an acidic tongue when dealing with Amano, in order to avoid any unnecessary, long-drawn-out arguments that could be twisted into something else entirely and cause more stress and drama than he preferred to handle.)

 

(Obviously, it hadn’t done anything good for his reputation, but it had made sure people left him alone. And that was all he wanted.)

 

(However, no matter what, Amano never seemed to get the fucking message. This wasn’t even a grudge that had been started within their generation, for crying out loud!)

 

“Isn’t it too early for you two to start leaping at each other’s throats?” Ah, fantastic. His little leash-holder was around as well. This day kept on getting better and better.

 

He recognized that voice a bit too well for his liking. It was the voice of Michiru Okane, a female Alpha who always seemed to be around to get Amano out of trouble.

 

Her fiery-looking red hair was in contrast to her cold-cut, dry personality. Brown eyes were usually seen as warm and welcoming, but hers were far from that popular description as well. She was currently wearing an outfit similar to his, except her jeans were a light blue and her shirt was orange.

 

And she looked slightly miffed. As usual.

 

He could already feel a headache forming. Her scent usually put him on edge a lot of the time, because her sharp scent, in combination with Amano’s thick, cloying one, quickly wore on him.

 

He often needed to take a short nap after encountering them; the combination was very overwhelming at the best of times, thoughtless of now. Speaking of which…

 

“Tell that to your little lap dog,” Shuuichi said, rolling his eyes trying and to breathe as little as possible.

 

“My _what_?” Her tone was -slightly more frosty than usual. It was an unusual weak-point for someone like her to get so irritated over something like that. At the very least, it got both of them off of his case rather quickly, so he wasn’t about to complain about it.

 

“You heard me loud and clear. You’re the one who insists on following him around and bailing him out of every single situation he gets himself into.”

 

She glared at him, and opened her mouth to retort before she was cut off b someone else.

 

“Hey! Cool it down for a second, all of you!”

 

It was Kaito.

 

( _Oh, fuck_!)

 

Shuuichi felt as if he’d been smacked on the back. Right… Kaito was still there… He sighed, closing his eyes for a second. Fantastic. Of all the times for these two to show up, it was now. He opened his eyes quickly, and, despite himself, he sucked in a deep breath.

 

He grimaced. Of all the times to not have a convenient exit, or even a hat to cover his face with. He crossed his arms and glared at both Amano and Michiru. They had started this, after all. He wasn’t about to make excuses for their behavior.

 

“What the hell are you looking at, Saihara?!” Amano looked… unsettled?

 

 _This_ quickly?

 

What game was he trying to play at now? Whatever the case, Shuuichi wasn’t going to respond. He didn’t need to dig himself into a deeper hole.

 

So he simply continued glaring at the idiot.

 

“Shuuichi.” He turned around to see Kaito. “Stop it.”

 

Shuuichi barely held back a snarl. What did Kaito know? He’d dealt with those two for so long and had had enough encounters with them to know that they would double-team him and lie through their just to get him in trouble.

 

(The worst thing about it was that, by some miracle, his family hadn’t pissed o Michiru’s in any shape or form. However, she seemed just as antagonistic towards him as Amano did. It wasn’t like he really cared, but at times like this, it was a rather annoying fact to think over.)

 

He choked back another retort, remembering how he was supposed to try and balance his reputation out before he made himself come off as completely irredeemable. At this realization, he felt the overwhelming urge to grind his teeth.

 

Against what he truly wanted to do, he nodded and forced his expression to become as neutral as he could muster.

 

“Alright, you three. Talk. What the hell was this all about?” Kaito sounded confused, and a bit angry about this. Not that he could really blame him. To an outsider, it would look like all three of them had randomly decided to start drama with each other.

 

(People couldn’t pick up on years’ worth of imprinted behavior at a single glance, after all.)

 

However, Shuuichi still felt as if he’d been thrown under a carriage at Kaito’s question.

 

How was he supposed to know what this was about?! This time, it seemed like something that had been unprovoked, unless he’d been singled out for some so-called misdemeanor that he’d managed to forget about in the past few days.

 

Whatever the case, they pulled nonsense like this all of the damn time; how was he supposed to know if there was any reasonable goal behind this incident? Nonsense like this happened all of the time; he had no idea what to do about it apart from his normal method of settling things, nor did he have any idea on how to answer this question without sounding insulting.

 

What a fantastic situation this was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How was it? I'm hoping that the special introductions of this chapter weren't too jarring or out of place, or too off-putting.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The argument lasts a little longer than expected.
> 
> Featuring: Kaito's point of view, for the entire chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took a minor overhaul during development, lol. I'm hoping it came out as cohesive as possible.
> 
> Quick note if you missed it in the summary! This chapter is all told from Kaito's point of view!

**CHAPTER ELEVEN**

Kaito didn’t know what to think of this situation. His instincts were alternating between concerned and confused, and his mind was racing to try and find out just where things had imploded so spectacularly.

 

He’d seen Shuuichi get defensive before, but that had never been accompanied by such a high level of aggression. Not to mention just how quickly and brutally his temper had flared up and his placid mood had crashed. This was definitely a pretty drastic change, especially considering that the gravest offense the other two had done was enter the room.

 

Well, enter the room and immediately start insinuating nonsense, but the general gist of it was that his mood had tanked as soon as the Omega had started talking.

 

Shuuichi's responses weren’t like his normal barbed jabs either. These sounded more like the irritated, snappy responses a person would come up with in order to shut people down before they lost their temper, not like the more mellow, playful jabs he preferred when he wasn’t either sulking or yelling at him.

 

Speaking of that, Shuuichi  _had_ lost his temper already.

 

Kaito could say for sure that this particular instance was different than when he’d managed to rile him up. That was probably because he hadn’t pissed Shuuichi off to such a great extent. If Shuuichi’s magic had manifested any differently, there would be a hole in the floor from hor hard he was glaring at it.

 

You’d think that it was the  _floor_ that had personally offended him at this point.

 

The icing on the cake was how the rest of the people from Shuuichi's province were acting. They were clustered all the way back at the entrance to the hall, and they were barely attempting to conceal their gossip. They looked as if they were anticipating some sort of fight, and their scents betrayed their excitement. You’d have thought they were anticipating some sort of dogfight with the way they were talking amongst themselves. Ridiculous.

 

Only a few people didn’t seem to be looking forward to a fight, but they still looked as if this was something they’d seen many times and didn’t care to see another repeat.

 

It was painfully clear that there was bad blood between the three of them, but he wondered how deeply the conflict actually ran. He couldn't assume much from this, but it seemed like the result of something resembling a long-running mutual grudge. Possibly a familial one.

 

“Well? Does anyone care to explain this? If we don't get to the bottom of why you three seem to be inclined to snap at each other on sight like dogs, it could cause a lot of problems,” he said, looking back at the three troublemakers.

 

Shuuichi crossed his arms and straightened his posture, turning to glare at a nearby wall. The people around that area who were from the Kirigiri Kingdom seemed to get uncomfortable quickly, all of them moving away as if cued by an invisible signal.

 

That was… Kaito didn’t want to think of its implications right now. He’d known that something like this would have to happen, looking at the Saihara clan’s reputation, but so fast? At this rate, there were probably rumors that they were cursed.

 

The other two hadn’t stayed static either.

 

The one who Shuuichi had initially snapped at turned slightly, maintaining his glare. He seemed to be deliberately trying to rile Shuuichi up, or at least get a reaction out of him.

 

...that explained the staring at the wall thing, then. Shuuichi was trying to one-up this guy by deliberately refusing to give him a reaction. Something told him that if this had happened under any other circumstance, Shuuichi would have left the room by now. Despite his best efforts, his agitation could still be considered a reaction.

 

And in the case of this other Omega, a victory. His scent, a mix of oranges and grapefruit, still held a sharp edge of embarrassment to it, but it was quickly getting overtaken by the less cloying scent of satisfaction.

 

Almost as if in response, Shuuichi’s scent did the exact opposite, the clashing scents of embarrassment and anger had already started to gang up and fill the room, fraying at his Alpha instincts a little bit.

 

Shuuichi’s natural scent was a mix of vanilla and cinnamon, and a slight undertone of lime. Right now, however, it was getting overpowering, and not in a good way. Even the scents of the spectators started to change from excitement to trepidation. It was obvious that the two Omegas had some sort of rivalry with each other that nobody dared to break, but the combination of how intense their scents were getting was starting to do a number on the atmosphere in the room.

 

Who knew that two scents could clash this _badly,_ when their owners weren’t even experiencing the same emotions?

 

An undertone of nausea was present within the entire populace of the room at this point, and Kaito himself was struggling to hide a grimace. The combination of sickly-sweet satisfaction and near-unbelievably acrid simmering anger was something he would never wish on anyone.

 

It seemed like this entire situation had some degree of premeditation to it. THat, and that those two wouldn’t be saying anything any time soon. Someone had to do something by this point, or they would push the rest of the crowd out of the room. People with more sensitive noses were already starting to look a bit dizzy.

 

They’d made themselves come to a standstill, so he guessed it would be better to get answers from the third party in this mess.

 

He looked at the red-headed Alpha female who had come after the other Omega, and raised an eyebrow. It was like issuing a silent plea to her; a nonverbal way of asking her if she knew what the hell was going on.

 

She nodded once, and gave him a level stare. It took a little sifting, but he was soon able to detect that her scent hadn't shifted one bit throughout. She smelled of cherry blossoms, and, surprisingly, cake. It was an oddly sweet scent for one who didn't look even vaguely approachable. She knew what was going on, and she didn't want to tell him. She tilted her head almost imperceptibly.

 

…with this little information, how was he supposed to piece this together himself?

 

She shrugged.

 

That confirmed it.

 

If she had any stake in this situation, it wasn't major. It was as if she was simply tagging along to the situation whenever she felt like it, or maybe if she was cued in. However, he didn't feel like the latter would happen too often; her stance was very self-assured, and he could sense that it would take a lot to get her to agree to any plan, especially one that seemed so petty.

 

It was very, very odd situation, honestly. He wondered what sort of nonsensical politics the social strata of Shuuichi’s kingdom ran on, if spats like these were apparently passable conduct.

 

He closed his eyes for a second before sighing and turning to the two Omegas in the room who had caused this situation.

 

“We're not leaving until someone tells me what's going on, you know,” he said, making a few people jolt. “So it would be in your best interests to start talking.”

 

“Why don't you ask him?” the black-haired Omega said. What was his name again… Amano, wasn't it? It was probably because his Alpha instincts felt absolutely shot at this point, and the fact that he was trying to keep his temper down, but Amano was starting to get on his nerves.

 

“How about the _both_ of you talk? Even if the two of you can spend all day doing this, we actually have an agenda to follow.”

 

“Hmph,” Amano scoffed. “Why should I speak first? Vermin like him should be the ones who have to speak first.”

 

“You're both part of the same social circle.” Kaito barely restrained himself from growling out the sentence. He had no idea if this was supposed to be some sort of superiority complex or some way of stalling, but either way, he didn’t like it.

 

“Well, at least I have decency!”

 

“Insulting someone as soon as you see them is considered decency? I feel afraid to find out what you would call _indecency_.”

 

A bit of hushed snickering briefly circulated around the room.

 

“H-Hey! He deserved it!”

 

“Can you please elaborate on that? Are you trying to tell me that he deserves to be verbally assaulted just because he happened to be talking to someone? I fail to see the logic here.”

 

“Your highness, I'm sure you don't know him as well as you think you do.”

 

“Well of course not, I've only known him two days.” What was the point of this? He wasn’t a naive child, that was basic common sense. Even though he preferred to look for the best in people in spite of whatever they initially seemed to be, Kaito knew that there were boundaries to how much he knew a person.

 

It was just that Shuuichi was a bit of a special case.

 

And speaking of special cases...

 

“If this has something to do with his clan and its reputation, you don't need to tell me. I already did my research on that, thanks.”

 

The last thing anyone wanted or needed right now was _more_ drama.

 

“He's just as bad as the rest of them, you know.”

 

That _confirmed_ that the root of this was some form of familial dispute. If things were going to get this dramatic, he might want to look into what the hell had started it in the first place.

 

Sometimes it was the seemingly inconsequential things that had the power to completely and utterly destroy things at an unexpected time. The last thing that they all needed right now was infighting.

 

“You sure about that? His aunt and uncle are well-respected in their various social circles. And I've yet to see him do any real misdeeds. Or anything, really”

 

“As you said, you haven't seen anything he's done. Most of the people here can say otherwise!”

 

“Oh, really?” This was starting to sound like the typical ridiculous and overblown accusations that came from spoiled nobles who only held sway over others because no one wanted to trigger their short fuse. “Give me three witnesses who can say that he has done something that you dislike, which has nothing to do with the general ‘problem’ of him existing.”

 

“He's a nuisance! Everyone can attest to it!” Blatant dodging the question.

 

“If you can't give me any concrete evidence for this except for ‘he's annoying,’ then don't bother. I'm more concerned about what he did to you that made you think it was an idea to insult him on sight.” If this was some sort of personal grudge between them, he wasn't tolerating it.

 

Especially when the clashing of their scents was starting to give him a headache. The surprising thing was that Shuuichi’s scent was more overpowering. Even when they’d had that argument, his scent hadn’t gotten this bad. It had soured a little, sure. But never before had if straight-up turned this _acrid._

 

Even when he’d been _yelling_ at him, it hadn’t been this bad. If they were going to make things like this a habit, he’d have to arrange things so that they would have as little contact with each other as possible.

 

He looked skeptically at Shuuichi, them back at Amano. Shuuichi looked as if he was ready to either seal himself in his room for a week or kill someone on the spot. Amano seemed both smug and slightly… irritated? Kaito couldn't pinpoint it but Amano had that look on his face that he only saw on the faces of people who were trying to pry information out of someone.

 

From the look of it, neither of them would be talking without prompting for a while.

 

He had no idea what sort of history they could have together, but he could guess that it wasn't good, and that the reputation of Shuuichi's family had something to do with it. He would probably have to put down some time to research the families the Saihara clan had had ties with. Maybe he was jumping to conclusions, but there could be other disgruntled clan members around here. And the last thing they needed was infighting. Not when there was still a high-level threat against all of them.

 

(Whose bright idea had it been to link almost every single thing a person did back the “legacy” of their family? More often than not, it never did anything of consequence. The outliers were either people whose every action became excused by the “noble” history of their family, or people whose every action was heavily scrutinized due to very shady family history.)

 

(He'd never liked it, really. All it ever did was sort people into categories which could either help or harm the person for life. It normally brought more harm than good, on both extremes.)

 

“If you aren't going to talk, at least cut back with the glaring. Both of you.”

 

The reaction was immediate. Amano's expression quickly shifted into an easy grin, while Shuuichi closed his eyes. Everyone else followed suit, springing back from whatever they’d been doing as fast as they could.

 

He heard the familiar sound of an air-cleansing charm being cast, and a second later, he could breathe easily.

 

The sheer intensity of their scents had all but overridden any possible counter-scenting from the Betas, and Kaito was thankful that no Alphas had tried anything. When it came to matters of scent, Omegas were notorious for being able to overwhelm others faster than most Alphas ever tried to.

 

After everyone had settled down as best as they could, he'd quickly given them all the rundown of what they'd be doing.

 

It basically boiled down to both physical and magical training. The Enoshima Empire would send spies sooner or later, and while the security of the Luminary Kingdom was quite high compared to the general average of the South Region, the Enoshima Empire was famous for managing to bypass some of the most advanced security systems the world had ever seen, the Novoselic Kingdom of the West Region being a prime example of that.

 

They definitely had an edge, what with driving the heir to the throne, Sonia Nevermind, into despair, and thus being able to use her knowledge of the security systems to bring the country to its knees, but the fact that they'd managed to get to the heir at all was something that couldn't be overlooked.

 

It hadn't been instantaneous, obviously. The precise details were still unknown, but from what they could safely assume, there had been an entire network of spies seamlessly woven into the normal fabric of the castle officials. From there, subtle manipulation and no small amount of mind-altering magic had resulted in one of the biggest losses to the Hope Empire Alliance till date, as well as one of the nose somber cautionary tales.

 

However, there was a reason why the South Kingdom had managed to avoid being annexed like that. For reasons yet unknown, the natural magic that flowed there granted them no small amount of resistance to mind-altering magic. However, most scholars agreed that this resistance could have come from one of two theories: that the South Region had been where these mind-altering spells had either originated from, or were widely used quite shortly after they had first been invented.

 

That, and the fact that people from the South Region tended to be some of the most suspicious, blockheaded people one could meet in their lives, meant that the Enoshima Empire's favored method of coercion had a low chance of working.

 

They were also some of the most paranoid people on the planet and had thus made leaps and bounds in the area of security systems, so that was an extra bonus. That, and depending on where they had been raised, they could have one of two things: great strength and military training, or higher adaptability to changes in societal structure. This could be larger changes, like sensing a shift in government months or even years before it fully occurred, or in smaller increments, like being more easily able to tell if someone had undergone a personality change, without relying on body language.

 

Most people from the Kirigiri Kingdom seemed to fall into the latter category. This consequently meant that they could be far more likely to notice if someone was acting oddly, which could then be used to pinpoint people who were falling into despair, or even agents of Despair themselves. While that was all well and good, spies from the Enoshima Empire were notorious for quickly turning violent when confronted. Junko herself was rumored to have a policy that basically boiled down to: “If I want something and I don't get it immediately before boredom sets in, I will destroy it.”

 

(He had to pretend not to see the shivers that passed through the entire assembly at that point.)

 

No one was willing to see if that extended to humans as well. And seeing just how lacking they all were in combat, it was decided that they would be undergoing training, to strengthen both their physical and magical abilities.

 

But first off, they would be meeting with some of the royal physicians to judge how much aptitude they actually had in those areas.

 

There were no objections to that, so they were dismissed, and some of the servants went to lead them to their appointments.

 

He went back to his study to think. Luckily for him, planning ahead had paid off; he had a large chunk of free time to spend on his own for once.

 

Not that he hated his duties as the heir to the throne, but sometimes he needed a little time to himself. He always felt just a bit more relaxed once he entered his study.

 

He thought over the selection of nobles he'd seen gathered in the hall. Most of them seemed to be the picture of the average noble, no surprise there. There was a healthy mix of all three dynamics within the group, with Omegas being slightly more in number, and Betas being slightly less in number.

 

Interesting preferences.

 

Kaito decided to note that down, getting out a fresh piece of parchment. This tidbit of information could turn out to be handy, if any other provinces in the area might get targeted in the future.

 

Of the ones that had been narrowly saved now, things seemed a little disheartening.

 

Only a few of them looked to have the strength for heavy combat, so that was worrying. The Enoshima Empire never went easy when it came to battles. That would mean there would be a heavy focus on the defensive arts rather than attacking. Basically giving them the ability to stall the spy out until someone with higher power could actually come and properly apprehend them as a best-case scenario.

 

He didn't know what to expect when it came to magical ability. Shuuichi's ability was one in a million in and of itself, but seeing just how little he seemed to know about his own abilities… he had a sneaking suspicion that his parents might had done that directly. Another red flag was that Shuuichi didn't seem to take heat suppressing herbs, according to what he’d said earlier pertaining to why he hadn’t been at the conference. Would that have been by choice, or not? Especially in this kind of society, when one's reputation was pinned on how often one attended the right kind of events.

 

That wouldn't be the first time he'd be wondering about the Saihara clan. Ever since he'd heard of them, he'd wondered how they'd managed to survive in a place like the Kirigiri Kingdom. Or how the Stoneca Province had managed to close itself off from the rest of the region so thoroughly.

 

It was an oddity, really. A place filled with immorality in the midst of a kingdom that held virtue in high esteem. Around half of the rumors that circulated about it were ludicrously fantastical, yet with what Shuuichi had told him, some of them were true.

 

And even at that, things still seemed to be structured oddly. Or at the very least Shuuichi's perspective was more limited that he'd originally thought. Just how isolated was he within his native circles? “Very” was the only descriptor that came to mind. And that on its own was odd, in a place that valued close connections between clans. But looking on the Saihara clans track record, it didn't seem as surprising as it would be when considered aside from that.

 

To put it bluntly, the Saihara clan was a near family-wide representation of that one noble who always seemed to hold an odd advantage during times of trouble, times that were so turbulent that half of the aristocracy was fearing for their lives and the other half was dead. They were the epitome of double-agents, and tended to be some of the least trustworthy people to have in an alliance, because they could and would abandon ship as soon as the tides turned sour for them.

 

And yet, unlike the usual people of this type, they didn't seem to be afraid of death or dying most of the time. Indeed, many of them, despite the near-universal hatred surrounding them, had never been assassinated. They had died peacefully, of old age most of the time.

 

It was unsettling to think about. Just how would they manage this? Some sort of secret benefactor assisting them? Or some sort of magical assistance? It clearly wasn't natural, and he fully intended to find out what it was.

 

But before that, he would have to look into the clowns of those other two. Amano and… tsk, he didn't know her name. If they had all been cataloged properly, then that wouldn't be too much of a problem.

 

He opened a drawer and pulled out what would have, under any other circumstances, been called an unusually large slab of glass, except for the fact that it was glowing with an almost ethereal purple pattern, which in itself seemed to be trapped within the glass.

 

Tapping twice on its surface, it came alive, the purple color settling for an ethereal gradient to a light purple color. Another tap made the list he was looking for appear instantly.

 

Junko had specifically targeted fifteen people, three of whom were now on an unofficial “watch closely” list.

 

He wanted to check Shuuichi's profile first, but decided against it. He still didn't know enough about him to be able to make an appropriate character assessment of him, despite what his gut instincts might have said about that. He couldn't let himself get biased, after all.

 

Besides, the general information of each person was a picture. He found Amano soon enough - his last name was Misaki - and the name of the female Alpha, which was Michiru Okane.

 

He looked into Amano first, since he seemed more likely to be a troublemaker. Some general information about his clan would be mixed in with his full description, so there was no unnecessary hassle involved.

 

…---...

 

The apple apparently fell from the tree, and rolled far, far away from it. Amano was the fifth child of the Misaki clan, and the only Omega son out of all of them. And he was the fifth child out of eight children. As a result, he'd been heavily pampered, slightly more so than his sisters, due to his special case of dynamic. As a result, he seemed to be starting out on a completely different business venture than the humble trading of various supplies that his clan was renowned for.

 

Instead of trading physical supplies, he traded in information. He was one of the people within his social class and age range that a person would have to be on the good side of in order to have an easy time navigating the social waters. This had worked out against Shuuichi, because as it turned out their clans had bad blood between each other.

 

It had to do with a series of trade deals gone south and a costly betrayal which had almost truncated the Misaki line mere decades ago. Although they had rebounded from it, even managing to flourish, it was obvious that it would take nothing short if a miracle to make the two clans cooperate on anything at all.

 

That was… disheartening, as well as  a bit concerning. If Shuuichi's clan could stoop to that level, and completely render trust invalid like that due to greed, what did that say about the individual that would come from that kind of family?

 

It honestly made him feel nervous. Although Shuuichi seemed less ready to start turning alliances on their head and more likely still trying to process all of this, people like him tended to crack easily under pressure like this, and demure personalities could completely flip if they became desperate enough to get their old life back.

 

Would Shuuichi be likely to do this? Seeing the infamous record of accomplishment his family had for such stunts, it was unfortunately, a very valid risk. However, even if he didn't take that route, Shuuichi as one of those people who could dig their heels into the ground and refuse to budge, even when given very valid reasons to try moving. As soon as they didn't get their way they could dig in their heels and practically halt operations, or whine so much thwy it would end up being a much more valuable alternative to let them go.

 

However, it was doubtless for this very shady list of family accomplishments that Junko was seeking him out. With that kind of family history, a person could become a very valuable commodity when it came to escaping from different situations, or findinf loopholes. People from such families were often very active, never static, seeming to change their opinions so quickly that nearly no information circulating about them could be used as a reliable way to confront them or decipher their plans. And it was there that Shuuichi became an outlier.

 

He was very, very much static. So much that Kaito hadn't been able to find out much information about him from the conventional grapevine. His social presence seemed to be almost completely nonexistent, and that on its own was a red flag. Omegas as a whole were generally more sociable, and in recent times, they'd come to hold nearly as much sway in society as Alphas did. Male Omegas especially so, due to the fact that they were fairly rare in the grand scheme of things.

 

And yet, Shuuichi was so oddly isolated. Not only that, but he didn't seem to care about this at all. This was definitely an odd choice, especially since he was the heir to the Saihara clan, thanks to the fact that he was an only child. This kind of isolation meant one of two things. That they were feeding him information, or were deliberately withholding it from him. From what Shuuichi had told him, it seemed to be the latter.

 

That on its own was actually… very concerning. Especially in these turbulent times. Such a lack of information could end up being very costly. It meant that there was some sort of conspiracy that his parents were a part of, no doubt. His uncle and his aunt probably knew about it, and judging from the way they'd acted at the Royal Conference, they definitely didn't agree with it.

 

Even before that, there had been a few rumors going round that there was trouble within the normally well put together family. And then the Royal Conference had been the icing on the cake. Something had definitely been wrong there.

 

What sort of parents would be so passively willing to let their child be handed over to a maniac as part of an arranged marriage like that? And doing that to their heir, no less.

 

 

Kaito could feel a headache forming, just behind his skull. This didn't make any sense. Unless they'd been planning to trade him off for years, they wouldn't have just--

 

Wait. What?

 

Kaito put down the glass slab and moved to rub his eyes. He suddenly felt tired and confused at the same time. That couldn't be true. It just couldn't be. What would anyone stand to gain from a near-suicidal over like that? Sure, during the days gone past, agreements like that had been nothing short of lifesavers for some ot today's noble lines. This case made no sense in the fact that Shuuichi was the heir of the clan, as well as the only child.

 

The only reason they would even think of doing this was… rather unpleasant to consider. Some people did use their children as bargaining chips in times like these, and to show their full alliances to a larger kingdom, empire, or sometimes even province, noble families had been know to hand over their first born, or sometimes even only child, in marriage to solidify the agreement.

 

But with the Enoshima Empire? This made less and less sense as Kaito thought about it. This went above and beyond just standard deal forging, and it didn't make any sense. What alliance would any noble family in the South Region have to the Enoshima Empire, and one that had such great importance? Unless this had to do with how the Saihara clan always seemed to have this mysterious ability to avoid being confronted for their misdeeds, much like the Enoshima Empire had started out…

 

But even then, that could mean that it wasn't just the one family. He remembered a few reports that had stated that there had been similar behavior in some other cases, similar behavior in the fact that there was little to no objection front he families of the affected nobles, and that only external protests had made sure that the children hadn't been handed over like that. And these incidents had been spread across various kingdoms in the region, not just this one case.

 

Kaito frowned. That… was not promising. Taking up the slab of glass again, he tapped twice on its surface, and the current interface was replaced with those reports. He hadn't looked into them too closely since they had been sent during the height of the preparations for the nobles’ safe travel.

 

Now that he had time, it might be best to look over those… especially if any of these were interconnected in any way. He really hoped that he was just overthinking all of this.

 

And if his suspicions turned out to have weight to them, the Hope Empire Alliance would be need to have this particular reconnaissance meeting far sooner than was originally anticipated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, how was it?


	13. Chapter 13

**CHAPTER TWELVE**

Shuuichi had been relieved when the physicians had finished all of the required tests.

 

Maybe it was because he personally never had any business making appointments with physicians and thus didn't know what was required, but there seemed to have been a lot of needless poking and prodding, as well as plenty of banal questioning. Even though it hadn't too invasive, he was hoping it wasn't something that would become a regular occurrence. To that end, he hoped that he didn't get injured too often, if at all. 

 

He idly wondered what the results of the tests would be. Probably average, or something below average, thanks to the fact that physical exercise wasn't something he indulged in regularly. His rather insulated life would, in most cases, have meant that he got ill often, but surprisingly, he didn't. 

 

A good immune system, he assumed. 

 

However, really, it wasn't something that really needed so much poking and prodding to figure out. What were all of those tests needed to determine, anyway? It probably wasn't any of his business, but it was still semi-interesting to think about. 

 

Semi-interesting in the fact that he'd been thinking about it for around all of twenty minutes and was already tired of it. He'd get a headache soon at this rate, and what for? Something that wasn't even his business to worry over; what arrant nonsense. 

 

It wasn't like he really cared much. Damn, he didn't even have to care at all. He'd better stop thinking of it, then. 

 

Moving his mind to more sensible topics, going by what Kaito had said, from that, they'd be going over to one of the larger castle halls to begin practicing. 

 

He… definitely wasn't looking forward to it. 

 

Combat magic wasn't his strong suit, and that had been something that had driven a rather large wedge between him and his father. His father was very, very good at combat magic, to the point that no one with a single functioning brain cell in their head would dare to challenge him to a fight. That was regardless of whether they had backup with them or not. 

 

However, on the contrary, ever since childhood, Shuuichi had preferred to use his magic to hide. He'd quickly become an expert at using magic to hide and escape being noticed. It had been needed as an essential survival skill.

 

His family's reputation had definitely preceded his birth, and as a result, people had been quick to take advantage of his relatively weak constitution ever since he was little. Children could be cruel, and adults could choose to voluntarily overlook it. Either way, his family hadn't cared, so he'd been left to figure out how to deal with himself on his own. 

 

He hadn't been inclined to bother wasting time trying to build up physical strength, so he'd gone dot the next-best option: magic. 

 

His primary magical talent may have been worthless in most situations, but he'd quickly been able to figure out sealing and locking spells. Part of the reason that his parents left him alone nowadays was because they couldn't break through the sealing and locking spells he'd taken to casting on his room all the time. 

 

Whenever one cast spells continuously in a particular area, magical residue would build up. It was why people hardly bothered hiding the fact that they'd cast a spell: magical residue could be traced back to the caster easily, almost as easily as tracking someone's scent. However, if one cast a specific spell over and over again in a particular area, not only would their magical residue remain, but traces of the spell itself. That meant the spell would be easier to cast over time, and could even be activated if the caster just walked into the room. 

 

Most people preferred that sort of repeated spell, because it made life easier. 

 

However, there was another class of people, one who could be considered neurotic in their actions. People who would continuously cast the same spell, in full, over and over again in the same place, without letting that automatic little mechanism kick in. In that case, not only would magical residue be left behind in the area, but the spell itself would start to sink into the room. The repeated casting would also make sure that the spell itself would become stronger and more effective. 

 

Case in point: he'd managed to turn his room into a tiny insulated fortress. 

 

(Maybe it was a little mean-spirited of him, but he took personal enjoyment in the fact that his parents had taken to defaulting to using servants as intermediaries whenever they needed to tell him something apart from badgering him about marriage.) 

 

(He'd started taking a little personal pride in making his room stupidly difficult for anyone else to access, just for the fact that he knew his parents would start simmering with rage the moment the servants started relating just how many loopholes they'd have to navigate through, thus turning what would ordinarily be a two-minute discussion into a fifteen-minute wild goose chase.)

 

(They valued punctuality a lot, so woe betide the person that wasted time and threw off their schedules. The pettiness ran strong with his actions.)

 

Good times. 

 

The problem was that those were mainly defensive spells that could be used within a room. What would he do with it in this situation? Lock himself in his room all of the time? 

 

Not only would he probably get dragged out (possibly kicking and screaming) in this case, it wouldn't do any help. Especially in a situation like being trapped in a room with someone. Using those particular spells would mean that all he would be able to do would be to thoroughly seal himself in a room with a would-be assailant. 

 

Not the best idea. 

 

Even though he didn't like it, defense training would probably be life-saving in such a situation. At the very least, he needed to ba able to delay an attacker for as long as possible before escaping the room and sealing the attacher inside. 

 

Though, yet again, his skills would only be useful in a complex, roundabout situation. He was getting used to it by this point. 

 

No matter how much he disliked the thought of training, it was probably for the best. As long as he wasn't battling against someone like Amano, he should be fine. 

 

At the very least, he hoped so. 

 

...---...

 

Shuuichi had no idea whether it would be better to express his complete and utter misery in refusing to attend dinner or trying to sift through the channels the communication orb had in order to personally chew Kaito out. 

 

He was completely and utterly exhausted, in mind, body, and magic. He was aching in muscles he hadn't even known he had, and his magic supply felt depleted for the first time in a long, long while. 

 

He decided that he hated the sensation of feeling so drained. There didn't seem to be enough blankets and water in the world that would satisfy his sore muscles and his dry throat. And he was supposed to suffer through this every single day for God knows how long? 

 

He'd barely spent a day in the Luminary Kingdom and he wanted to go home. Go home and seal himself in his room with a good book and some good cake, and hole himself up in his room for a week. 

 

As if the suffering hadn't been bad enough, he'd had to suffer alongside Amano. Amano complained like a little bitch at every single little thing that happened. It had tired Shuuichi almost as quickly as the exercise had, and the exercise had made sure he couldn’t even complain in protest to it. 

 

That just wasn't fair. He'd not only wanted to immediately die, but he'd wanted also wanted to run a pin through his ears and break his eardrums and deafen himself. 

 

For now, he was contenting himself with burying himself in pillows and soft blankets, trying to decide if it would be better to fully bury himself, or yet again refill the same glass of water he'd been drinking from like a thirsty animal for the past couple of hours. 

 

When he'd initially gotten to his room, he'd been too exhausted to move, lying down on the rug like a wounded animal. He'd barely managed to force himself to move, take off his clothes, and sit in the bath for around an hour, or more probably, two. The same magic mechanisms had kicked in some point, thankfully after he'd been able to relax and soak in the glorious warmth of the bath for a good while.

 

As if sensing how tired he felt, they'd been a little gentler than they usually would have been. 

 

So now, here he was, in his robe, sinking in the large, luxurious pillows and blankets and wondering if he really wanted to spend some of his now scarce mana on refilling the glass and gulping it down as if he was being chased. 

 

Then someone knocked on the door. 

 

“Who is it?” Thankfully, his voice didn't sound too raspy. 

 

“Guess!”

 

It was obviously Kaito. 

 

“Well, come in already!” Shuuichi knew that they had a lot to talk about. As Kaito opened the door, Shuuichi made sure to give him his best scowl as he came in. 

 

Even though he knew that he would probably end up looking like some sort of miserable, pouting cat, he could care less. 

 

“I'm guessing you didn't like the exercise?” Kaito asked, clearly struggling to keep a straight face. 

 

“Is that what you call it? ‘Exercise’? Seems a lot more like torture to me!”

 

Kaito actually laughed as he closed the door. “Didn't know you'd dislike it that much!” 

 

“Oh, really?”

 

“Yes, really.”

 

“What are your plans, really? To work us to death?”

 

“It's just basic training so you can defend yourself better. You'll be surprised.”

 

“For goodness sake, isn't this supposed to be one of the most secure castles in the region?”

 

“Without training, you'll all be sitting ducks, waiting for the Enoshima Empire to pick you off. You'll be surprised at how little mental fortitude actually matters to them.”

 

“Even so! Won't we be surrounded by security systems and guards all day, every day? This seems like a very redundant course of action, in my opinion.” Shuuichi didn't know whether it was the fact that his voice was dry, or the fact that he was tired, but he felt that his response sounded a little drier than it should have. 

 

Depending on how Kaito took it, this could spell another argument. 

 

He looked at Kaito closely, but he didn't seem to be affronted. Indeed, his scent seemed pretty calming, and his posture seemed normal. 

 

“You'll be surprised to hear that the Enoshima Empire brings people to despair individually most of the time,” he said. 

 

“What?” That just couldn't be possible, and it sounded highly impractical. 

 

“Not individually for every single person,” Kaito clarified, “but for people who are usually deemed important.”

 

“How so?” Shuuichi could feel his eyes narrowing as he sat up. Despite Kaito's air of calm, there seemed to be something just underneath the surface of the situation that was just a little bit off. 

 

“Remember the Novoselic Kingdom?”

 

Shuuichi grimaced. “Yes.” 

 

Rumor had it that the entire kingdom had been brought to its knees when the princess had turned rogue, seemingly on the turn of a dime, and declared her undying allegiance to the Enoshima Empire. From there, the kingdom quickly fell into disarray and despair, becoming a part of the Enoshima Empire, and taking with it a lot of the resourced the West Region could use to fight back against being annexed. 

 

It had not been a good time to be alive over there. 

 

“Remember that it was because of one person - the princess Sonia Nevermind - that the entire kingdom soon collapsed and became part of the Enoshima Empire?”

 

“Indeed.”

 

“Apparently, it's one of the Empires favored tactics when mind control is either ineffective, too tedious or too risky.”

 

Shuuichi openly shuddered. “That doesn't sound good… not at all.”

 

“It isn't,” Kaito agreed. “ From what few reports we've gotten so far, it seems like the Empire could be sending out spies so discreet that they evade most security measures that are put in place. These spies usually target a specific person, or group of people, to drag into despair first.”

 

Shuuichi suddenly felt like something had fallen into place somewhere, but he didn't understand the feeling fully. All he could feel was the sharp sense of dread creeping into his chest, winding itself around his heart. 

 

Meanwhile, Kaito continued talking. 

 

“Around half the time, it's suspected that some form of physical force would be used to confine the victim to a room. That or some form of magical foul play. Direct mind control doesn't work, so either of those two avenues is usually exploited. Training you to strengthen those two aspects of yourself should allow you to be able to identify such spies easily, and report them.”

 

Something cold ran down Shuuichi's spine. “You're talking as if this place is already compromised.”

 

“For all we know, it could be. We're attempting to turn the tides and give you guys an advantage. If the Empire gets what it wants, there's no doubt that things would start going downhill pretty quickly.”

 

“And giving the Empire what it wants isn't even a feasible option if we want to actually achieve the goal this mission is for,” Shuuichi said, his stomach starting to feel uneasy. 

 

“Exactly. Even though you might not like it, we still have to at least try and give you every single advantage we can.”

 

Shuuichi nodded, feeling temporarily unable to speak. 

 

Up until now, he'd only heard in passing of the things the Enoshima Empire did to kingdoms that opposed it. It had been sad, maybe a little scary, but it would never happen to him, because despite some certain people who were foolish enough to show open resentment and dislike of the Empire, the Kirigiri Kingdom still paid its tribute, whether they liked it or not. He'd been safe, the entire kingdom had been safe from the Empire's fiery wrath. But now that such open defiance had occurred, suddenly, kingdom, province, and individuals were all in danger of deadly scrutiny. 

 

Thinking of how quickly the tables had turned was… definitely unpleasant, and his stomach acted accordingly, performing all sorts of needless gymnastics in a miserable display of nervousness. Maybe he shouldn't have drunk so much water earlier; now he felt vaguely nauseous. 

 

… 

 

Nonsense. 

 

… 

 

Nonsensical. 

 

… 

 

None of this made any sense. 

 

According to how his life had been going a week ago, there was no reasonable explanation for this. This entire series of events was completely and utterly nonsensical, to the point that if anyone had told him that this would occur in any part of his life before, he would have laughed in their faces and asked them who they thought they were talking to. 

 

And yet here he was, in all of his exhausted glory, trying to process what the hell was happening, and what had happened to him, as well was wondering what the hell would happen in the future at this rate. 

 

The worst part of all of this? 

 

This was hardly four days after he'd heard the initial news. It hadn't even been more than four days since he'd heard the initial news, and he already knew that it was so much worse than he would have normally bothered to find out. 

 

It scared him. 

 

It scared him immensely, because he was so powerless in this situation. The existence of these self-defense classes, or whatever they could be called at this point, was to attempt to give him, no, everyone, a snowball's chance in hell of being to fight back against Enoshima Empire spies. 

 

His mouth felt dry, and he suddenly felt hyper-aware of what was happening around him. Apart from his and Kaito's breathing, and a few noises of the bedsheets, there wasn't any. Kaito's scent hadn't changed a bit, the now familiar pine and lavender scent remaining even. 

 

Something about this entire talk was unnerving him, and he didn't know if it was the subject matter or the fact that Kaito was talking about this as if he had done so on a regular basis for a while. 

 

Maybe it was a combination of both. Whatever the case, he'd found himself staring at the carpet, and he could already feel sweat beading on his forehead. The room felt too hot all of a sudden, and all he could feel was the temperature under his skin rising sharply as his stomach turned. He swallowed thickly, and closed his eyes. 

 

“I don't feel well,” he said. Understatement of the year; he felt like he was about to throw up and then bury himself under his blanket for a decade. 

 

“I'm guessing you might need a little time to fully process things,” Kaito said, sounding sympathetic. His scent had flared a little, becoming a bit heavier and spreading a little farther, and it was helping to calm him down slightly. 

 

Shuuichi nodded. “Please.” his voice sounded a little raspier than it should have been, but he could care less. He wanted to lie down, or something. Maybe not drink more water, but just dive right under the comfortable sheets again, curl up and take a long nap. Maybe read something to help him get to sleep, or something similar. He just felt… overwhelmed.

 

Part of him wanted to ask Kaito to stay, but he assumed that would be seen as being presumptuous of him. Kaito had actual work to do. 

 

That, and he suddenly felt extremely tired. Maybe he wouldn't be eating dinner after all. 

 

He opened his eyes to see that Kaito seemed to be a little worried about him. 

 

“I'm fine… I just think I'll have to go to bed earlier tonight,” he said. Kaito probably wouldn't buy it, but he doubted that the heir would press on it. 

 

It was already evening, anyway. He never really ate dinner before sleeping on a regular basis, so this wouldn't really be much of a change. It might raise a few questions, but he could honestly care less. 

 

He felt completely and utterly drained by this point, and even though he'd really prefer to talk to Kaito a little bit more over this, his brain was refusing to allow any more information permeate it, and was thus dragging him to sleep. 

 

“Are you sure about that?” As predicted, Kaito seemed a bit skeptical of what he'd said. 

 

“Positive.” He just wanted to sleep by this point.

 

“Alright. Just remember that you can easily contact me if needed,” Kaito said, finally moving towards the door.

 

“I'll remember, don't worry,” Shuuichi said, flopping down almost immediately, trying to burrow himself as deep as he possibly could within the blankets and pillows. 

 

He couldn't remember if he'd heard Kaito leave or if he'd fallen asleep faster than he'd expected. 


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Plot Device C, or the second-to-last OC character in this story is introduced. Shuuichi reminisces over his experience with training, and also suffers the horrors of being subjected to human interaction.
> 
> ...and a two month time skip because, for the life of me, I don't think I could possibly have written enough filler for that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *emerges from a sea of papers*
> 
> I am alive, and this story is not dead either. Finals tried to truncate both of those achievements, but I somehow managed to overcome it. 
> 
> So here, two weeks later, scheduled programming can finally get back on track! I hope you all enjoy the chapter!

**CHAPTER THIRTEEN**

The past two months had been a blur of experiences, some that were somewhat positive, and others Shuuichi wished he could scrub from his mind with an Oublié spell. In the end, however, Shuuichi felt that even though this wasn't a lifestyle he would consider ideal under normal circumstances, it was something that he could be thankful for in these ones he had to face.

 

He could still feel the residual aches and pains in his muscles from all of the constant exercise, but it was definitely _much_ better than it had been after that first day.

 

(Internally, he'd decided that due to his Supreme exhaustion, and the subtle shift that had formed between him and Kaito that day, that he'd try and refer to it as little as possible.)

 

During the first days of this… _normalized madness,_ he'd had no idea whether he'd be able to get out of bed or not; the pain had felt agonizing. Miserably so. He'd been prepared to curse out his ancestors, his parents, his province and the Enoshima Empire throughout the first week. He'd thought out some particularly creative ones for the Empire, too. It was almost a pity that he didn't get to use them.

 

(Even though that particular string of curses would have undoubtedly gotten his mouth scrubbed nearly to the point of bleeding, stuffed into the godforsaken _dress_ , treated to a three-hour lecture, and sent off to stay with his… _other aunt_ for _re-education_ , of his parents ever heard about it.)

 

(The worst curses were the ones that had the best mood-lifting qualities, he'd found.)

 

The only problem was all he'd been able to do was think about them. He'd been too exhausted to do much which had anything to do with moving. If he'd had his way, he would have sealed himself in his room for the next week and a half.

 

But alas, he'd had to find out the hard way that he couldn't skip exercise the way he could skip meals.

 

He’d also found that something had been done to his room to render him unable to use sealing or locking spells on it anymore. And that, yes, the servants apparently had full permission to physically him to the training halls, blankets and all, in spite of his whining.

 

He had also learned that some of the trainers had absolutely awful senses of humor, and could be extraordinarily creative when they wanted to make people exercise.

 

(Before entering the Luminary Kingdom, he’d never heard of the instrument called a recorder. After listening to it, he could safely say that the next time, if one of those accursed instruments had the gall to cross him again, he would destroy it _on sight_ , as _thoroughly_ as possible.)

 

And the worst part? He was what they called a “less-stressful case.” The methods they’d used to rouse him to exercise were laughable in the face of what they’d had to do for some of the worse nobles.

 

(He’d never even known chess pieces could _do_ that!)

 

He still had no idea whether the things the citizens of the Luminary Kingdom did were amusing or terrifying, and he didn’t know if he’d actually traveled to a proper kingdom or some twisted mockery of one.

 

It was only because he didn't have the physical or vocal power to keep protesting after the first three weeks that he’d been able to prevent himself from losing all shred of dignity and start screaming at the mere thought of what the trainers could pull.

 

That, and he'd been used to a life of compromise long before this had happened. If he simply obeyed what they told him to do, he could escape the madness, or at the very least, be able to comfortably rest and watch from the sidelines when the inevitable idiots started pulling tantrums.

 

(Unlike the _animals_ who'd literally started screeching like insane banshees when confronted with that knowledge. The mere _memory_ of that cacophony made him wish that he still had the opportunity to make a habit of his near-obsessive locking and sealing spells again.)

 

(Apart from his personal thoughts on the issue, that reaction had definitely been… an experience. It wasn't that he wasn't used to people screaming like that, but for goodness sakes, considering the circumstances, one would have thought they'd have kept it down a little. Some people just didn't seem to understand the idea of tact.)

 

(If only, if only he could figure out what the hell had been put on his room in order to disable his spells. It might take some amount of digging, but there was a slim chance that he could pry into the magical barriers of the place and see if he had any chance of prying into whatever defenses had been made to prevent him from casting those spells.)

 

(But, unfortunately, basic decency ruled that no matter how much he wanted to do that, he couldn't. After all, he was a mere guest, one of much lower status than his hosts, and to do something like that would be a flagrant display of disrespect. The ultimate faux-pas. And he'd had more than enough drama in his life to know that he didn't want any more of it.)

 

What he'd learned over the course of the two months of torture was that is was best to dress light, because no matter what he wore, he'd manage to sweat right through it. Lighter, looser clothes allowed for more movement, and were infinitely more comfortable than what he was used to.

 

Not only that, but the usual fashion police was completely out-of-order, and still being pushed in line by the ludicrously effective and comedic tactics of the trainers. Either that, or they had wisely shut up and begun fading into the background.

 

Either way, he was free to dress however he liked, and not hear idiots whispering over every single little thing he was wearing and doing. People seemed to be too busy being exhausted to try their usual nonsense, and he was definitely enjoying this reprieve from stupidity.

 

Today, he'd dressed up in some of the most lightweight clothes he had in his generously-provided wardrobe, namely a tank top and shorts. Both of them were part of a matching set, and both of them were a light blue color. He liked things that matched, to an extent, and he’d worn most of his black ones.

 

Limited fashion sense, he guessed. Not like anyone cared.

 

Currently, he was using basic mana attacks to beat up a training dummy. Or, as the trainers put it, “practice sparring techniques.”

 

“Practice,” was right. As it turned out, there actually was some modicum of strategy needed to fight properly. Despite the fact that he was the son of a person that was often called a “fighting demon,” his own skill when it came to combat was shamefully lacking.

 

(At least, that's what his father had often told him. He'd stopped caring nearly a decade ago.)

 

The strangest thing was, apart from a few basic instructions, the trainers had been very quick to just let them go to town and start to figure things out. It had had something to do with “figuring out your own attack style” or something similar. Initially, he'd thought that they'd just used that as an excuse to be lazy, but to his surprise, it was working.

 

They'd all been taught a variety of basic punches, kicks, tackles, and throws, as well as a few basic magical attacks. From there, they'd been encouraged to experiment and see what sort of trends they saw develop in their fighting style.

 

It had been… an experience.

 

The first thing Shuuichi had notices that any form of direct physical combat was tiring for him. Very much so. And it wasn't like he was good at it, either. No, direct physical combat was a headache and a half, and he definitely wanted to avoid it as much as possible.

 

He'd have said “avoid it until he'd built up enough strength to be something other than a mild annoyance, but he hadn't been brought up to lie.

 

(Never mind the fact that he lied on a regular basis, obviously.)

 

So he'd based most of his so-called combat practice around magical attacks. Even though he was still forced to do some actual practice with direct hand-to-hand combat, he focused more on magical combat. Magic was his strong suit, at the very least, so he'd at least be staring on a slightly elevated plane instead of trying to climb a ten-foot pit.

 

However, having only a faint knowledge of the aforementioned slightly elevated plane had admittedly led to a few pitfalls. Luckily enough, he'd been able to surpass them easily, and find his preferred little niche.

 

He'd quickly found out that when he wasn't trying to shield himself or hide somehow, his mana tended to cluster into a streamlined shape, which could be quickly redirected into something similar to a blade, or a whip. He wasn't sure if it was a good thing, since it seemed like it would only be effective in close range combat. It meant that if anyone confronting him decided to keep their distance, he could be in trouble. Whatever the case, he had to start somewhere, at the very least.

 

Even though he didn't like close combat, he'd have to bear with it until he gained enough skill to regularly keep enemies at bay long enough to use more distanced techniques.

 

Going back to actual combat techniques, the streamlined shape could manifest on one of two forms, which he had dubbed ethereal and tethered. The ethereal forms were ones that weren't physically attached to him in any way, and just manifested in the air. They were a little more tedious to control, needing a lot of rapid arm movements, and he had a slightly worse aim with them. As if to compensate for the lack of effective control, they did somewhat more damage, often leaving some nasty looking burns on the cloth of the training dummy. The tethered versions were ones that manifested within his hands, with semi-solid forms that he could physically manipulate. His aim still wasn't the best, but it was better than the ethereal ones.

 

Between the knife-like projectiles and the whip-like ones, he was much better with the latter. Probably because the former required aiming skills that he didn't have.

 

Apart from that, he could also form a few sharp, triangular projectiles occasionally. They were purely ethereal, and seemed to be especially volatile, exploding on contact with the training dummy whenever he used them. The problem was that they tended to spawn in a formation that was far too spaced out for his liking. He figured that if he could send a small group of them right at an opponent's chest or stomach, they would be knocked back, giving him enough time to flee the scene, or at the very least, out a shield up. However, that could be a rather optimistic way of thinking, since he hadn't been able to test its effects on actual people yet.

 

The instructors said that they would be better off if they kept on practicing with the training dummies for another week or thereabout, to learn their limits and refine their skills a little before moving to actual sparring with each other. He was thankful for that. He _really_ had to refine his technique more.

 

That, and he was sure that he wasn't going to like sparring against a few of the absolute _lunatics_ from his province.

 

At the very least, what he'd managed to pin down right now was effective on the dummy. A quick sequence of jabs, slashes and whipping quickly deteriorated the doll without fail, so he assumed he was doing a good job.

 

However, he was thankful that the dummies were enchanted to repair themselves automatically after they were finished with sparring practice.

 

(He _definitely_ wasn't carrying out a tiny bit of his anger during training. No, all he was going was exploring his skills and attempting to streamline them like the instructors had told him to. He definitely _didn't_ get a kick out of imagining a few people's faces on the training dummy as he beat it up. Not at _all_.)

 

He sighed, stretching a little bit, looking over the training dummy once again. It looked sufficiently battered enough, and his internal clock told him that he’d spent the required two hours training. He smiled. It looked like he’d be able to spend the rest of the day in his room. He’d shower first, then get a few snacks from the kitchen before going back to his room and reading for the rest of the day.

 

It was a nice schedule, if he did say so himself. It made all of this nonsense much more tolerable, having at least one little portion of his normal life intact, even though everything else seemed to have been turned on its head.

 

…the training wasn’t the only new thing that had cropped up. One of the nobles had gone against the status quo, and was actually… _interacting_ with him out of her own free will.

 

Her name was Misaki Haruka, and he didn't know if she had an ulterior motive, or if she was really genuinely sweet and naive. The Haruka clan was fairly isolated and had a rather nice reputation, even when compared to most other clans. However, they also had a peculiar quirk when it came to their children.

 

They seemed to have an odd talent for producing Omega children in their family line, yet still managing to maintain their prestige and their family business. Said family business was serving as dignitaries for the Kirigiri royal family.

 

They, along with several other families, had been the ones to start the positive change in views about Omegas. Not that everyone took them to heart, but it had at least started something.

 

However, Misaki seemed to be rather sweet and good-hearted, not seeming to act like a person of her status usually acted. She didn't seem to care much for airs, or greetings, and would insistently hang around him during and after training sessions, happily chattering away at whatever seemed to catch her fancy at that time, or insistently asking his questions about how his life had been, seeming very interested in the various differences and similarities their upbringings.

 

Her scent was mint and lime, a rather odd combination, but one that seemed to work all the same. It was a little zesty, if he was honest. In fact--

 

“Shuuichi!”

 

Speak of the devil, and she shall appear.

 

There went his plan to waste a few more seconds stretching.

 

And with it, most probably the rest of his peaceful afternoon.

 

Fantastic.

 

He turned around.

 

She was joyfully skipping over, looking a bit like an excited child with how bright her eyes were. They were normally a dark red, but they seemed to get a little brighter when she was especially happy.

 

Though it was beyond him why his presence could make anyone happy.

 

She was wearing an all-black ensemble, which consisted of a tank top and shorts. She seemed full of energy today, and her light red magic was flared around her slightly, making her hair seem more lively than it had any right to be. It was literally hovering in the air as if she was some sort of elemental mage.

 

It was kind of cute.

 

Looking closer, he could see that she was coming at him much faster than he'd thought earlier.

 

In fact, it seemed like if she didn't slow down, she would literally slam right into him.

 

That wouldn’t be too good…

 

He quickly materialized a shield and braced himself.

 

**_THOOM._ **

 

She slammed right into it, and the amount of force she'd used managed to push him slightly backward.

 

“Hello, Misaki,” he said, slowly bringing the shield down. She really packed a heavy punch. He would be lying to himself if he said he didn't find it at least a little threatening.

 

“Hello, Shuuichi!” In contrast, she sounded decently refined, although noticeably out breath. “It looks like your training has been going well!”

 

“It has, thank you, Misaki. You seem to have gotten a bit stronger as well. But I’m guessing you've finished your training for today?”

 

“Technically.”

 

“‘Technically’?”

 

“One of the instructors told me that I'd have to lay off the training dummy for a while, so I wouldn't wear out its healing spell.”

 

Shuuichi arched an eyebrow. “Is that possible?” He could hear the little warning bells going off in his head.

 

“I've had trainers before this all happened. My parents were worried about my safety, so they got me an instructor. I've been practicing for years.”

 

...of _course_  he’d forgotten about that.

 

“A few people I know wouldn't appreciate that,” he said. He realized a split second later that the comment could be taken the wrong way, and the fact that he couldn’t rescind it.

 

“By ‘a few people,’ I'm assuming you mean your parents, correct?” She looked at him, tilting her head and pushing her dark violet hair out of her face.

 

She always did that, assuming he was talking about a specific set of persons instead of a general portion of the populace.

 

(The fact that she was usually correct did nothing good for his fragile ego. Was he really so see-through that people could see through whatever he said as if he was a pane of glass? Between her and Kaito, the training wasn’t the only thing that had been making the past two months a living hell.)

 

She shook her head. “It's a foolish way of thinking. I dislike people that have that point of view; they always end up stifling people's potential. It isn't fair, and I hope they come to their senses one day.”

 

 _How_ could she look so childish one moment and then start spouting near-philosophical rambling the next?

 

Shuuichi scoffed. “Don't count on it happening anytime soon. And there _was_ no potential to start with, no matter what you and Kaito keep saying.”

 

She opened her mouth to protest, but apparently thought better of it, instead choosing to close her mouth and shake her head. She’d learned by now that he had a particularly nasty habit that etiquette lessons hadn’t managed to breed out of him: completely refusing to speak about topics that bothered him in some way.

 

It was probably a reason why people tended to avoid him: he was often very, very quiet. Quiet to the point that, when he was little, people had initially assumed that he’d been mute, or had some sort of developmental delay in his speech. He just didn’t like talking at the best of times, but these past few weeks had been… definitely close to what he would call awful.

 

Especially with Amano continuously trying to provoke him all the time on top of everything else.

 

“Well, if you’re still hung up on that…” She, too, knew the delicate art of passive-aggressive speech and actions.

 

“Yes?” he said.

 

“Are you going to finish training soon? I want to go out into the gardens and relax.”

 

“And you expect me to come with you?”

 

“Yes.”

 

Well, there went his plan to get some food from the kitchen and hole up in his room for the rest of the day. Why were his plans always foiled like this nowadays?

 

“But I haven’t finished training yet,” he said, trying to stall while coming up with an excuse.

 

“You purposefully came down late in order to avoid everyone else, and despite the fact that the others have already gone, you’ve spent the same required time training as everyone else has. You’re stalling.”

 

He really was a pane of glass to these people. There was still a very slim chance that he could worm his way out of it, though/

 

“But I--”

 

Misaki gestured grandly at the training dummy. “I don’t know about you, but I think this poor dummy is begging to be relieved of its duty. Your aim has definitely gotten better; it looks like it’s barely holding itself together.”

 

“That’s an exaggeration!”

 

But she kept on going. “Just look at it! It’s covered in slashes and burn marks, and you’ve managed to put holes in it! Not to mention, the head is barely remaining attached to the neck at this point in time.”

 

Shuuichi could feel the heat in its cheeks rising. “So? Remember, I’m using one of the weaker models anyway; it accumulates damage more easily!”

 

“Care to explain why it’s head and torso looks so mauled? If I didn’t know any better, you had someone in mind while you were doing this.” She looked at him with that gaze which all female Omegas seemed to have. He swore that she was looking into the very depths of his soul. “Did you?”

 

He chose to bluff his way out of it. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

 

“Oh really? All right, let’s assume I believe you.”

 

He felt crushed.

 

“But do I have to follow you to the gardens? Everyone else is there, and I’m sure your reputation has been dropping since you began thinking that it was a good idea to spend more time around me. Some of your regular friends are starting to avoid you, you know.”

 

“By ‘friends,’ do you mean the sycophants that I was glad to get rid of? Because I don’t want them back.”

 

“Even so, you know how the social politics work--”

 

“We’re not in Stoneca anymore; it’s about time the social order started to break in favor of becoming something new.”

 

“If you’re referring to this, I fail to see how it’s groundbreaking.”

 

“Your attitude is what’s groundbreaking here. In a world where ass-kissing has become the norm, you have very few qualms about telling people what you really think of them. I consider that a virtue.”

 

“A virtue of foolishness, if there is any such thing in this world. The reason I can do it so freely is because I have no reputation to lose. You, on the other hand, have a prosperous family name and business behind you, and I’d rather not have your social downfall be on my conscience, thanks.”

 

“Well, I would thank you for it ten times over, no matter what you think.”

 

“Do my personal thought even matter?”

 

“Of course they do.”

 

“So why are you dragging me outside?”

 

“To get some fresh air and get some color in your cheeks. You’re so pale that you’re almost a ghost, you know!”

 

“I’ll have you know that my pale skin is one of the few virtues my family passed down to me, thank you very much. It saves a lot of money and time when it comes to using powder, you know.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Yes. However, the problem comes with the rest of the make-up. Whenever they choose to cover me with it, over half of the time, they can’t just look for whatever colors my mother prefers to use. Apparently, there's a difference between ‘pale like fine china’ and ‘pale like a sheet.’”

 

“They call you a sheet?”

 

“When they think I can’t hear them.”

 

“Well, come on, we can talk more about it on the way to the gardens.”

 

And here he’d started to think that he could have managed to finally root her down in one place and have a conversation like normal people. He couldn’t even feel true surprise; it was more of a belated amusement at this point.

 

“Do I have to go?”

 

“There are lots of flowers in the gardens, remember? Who knows, you might end up finding a patch of flowers you like so much that you’ll jump in them!”

 

“Are you _ever_ going to let me live that down?!”

 

“Nope! Come on, let’s go!”

 

Shuuichi had no more time to protest as Misaki quite literally started dragging him with her.

 

Typical.

 

If she wouldn’t let him stay alone in peace, he’d turn into dead weight as best as he could. It wasn’t like she could have the strength to carry him there, right?


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things escalate quickly. Also, apocalypse of the commas. Grammarly really called me out on that last part.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Introducing:
> 
> A) A little more worldbuilding when it comes to where Shuuichi is from.  
> B) Attempts at humor.  
> C) Clear displays of immaturity.  
> D) Mild chaos.  
> E) Two rapid escalations.
> 
> I hope you'll enjoy it!

**CHAPTER FOURTEEN**

Shuuichi had learned an important lesson: to never underestimate Misaki ever again in his life.

 

The madwoman had literally hauled him onto her back as if he was little more than a sack of potatoes, and _ran with him_ all the way to the gardens, like some sort of freak of nature. When she’d put him down, he’d had no idea whether to laugh or cry, and neither did anyone else.

 

They were the same height, and should have been around the same weight. How had she _done_ that? Should feats like that even be physically _possible_ for Omegas? He had no answer for it, and when she ’d gently put him down on the grass, sat down beside him and started talking to him, he’d had half a mind to start running away from her as fast as possible.

 

But the other half of his mind said that with all the rumors circulating about him, that would just have him classified as insane, and he really didn’t need that stigma about him.

 

However, just sitting down and eventually getting into a warm conversation with the same person who had literally rushed into the garden with him slung over her shoulder like some sort of tasteless accessory probably wasn’t doing him any favors either.

 

Even so, for once, he didn’t care too much about it.

 

Discussing about the sheer stupidity of fashion trends, however? He was no fashion guru, but the gossip on that particular topic was something that anyone, regardless of status, could enjoy. And it covered every known topic to man, so there was no such thing as gossip that couldn't be enjoyed!

 

Even people who didn't gossip on a regular basis could easily enjoy the practice of gossiping, and Misaki was absolutely not an exception.

 

He was getting more information in this singular conversation than he'd usually get in weeks, and he had to admit, he was loving it.

 

“Are you _serious_? They were actually wearing ruffled clothes? In that weather?” He’d barely been able to stop himself from snickering. People who thought themselves more important than they actually were had some of the worst taste he’d ever heard of.

 

“In the blistering heat of summer, yes. You should have seen it. They looked like a selection of jeweled cakes, or peacocks,” Misaki said, rolling her eyes.

 

“‘Jeweled cakes’? What is that supposed to mean?”

 

“Exactly what I said. Cakes decorated with fake, edible jewels.”

 

“That sounds both appetizing and mildly horrifying.”

 

“Says the one who binges on cakes at every single party.”

 

“Give me a break. The food, wine, and free entertainment is the only reason I see balls as worthwhile.”

 

“‘Free entertainment’? You mean when people embarrass themselves and usually destroy valuable property in the process?”

 

“And then make their families start rushing around like headless chickens in order to try and quiet down the rumors and simultaneously pay back the value of the damaged property, oftentimes with interest? Or start looking for how to either force two nobles to marry or ship off the pregnant one to some distant province or kingdom to have the baby? Or try and go under the noses of the overly pious and remove the problem?” He probably took a little _too_ much glee in recounting all of this, but he didn’t care.

 

Once balls had evolved from the heavily-chaperoned affairs that they had suffered under as children and young teenagers to far less structured and monitored ones, things had escalated rather quickly.

 

“Yes, those things,” Misaki said, sighing. “Why do you take so much joy in things that ruin people’s lives?”

 

“Because they ruined mine right from the start? Why shouldn’t I resort to that in order to get some sort of closure? It isn’t as if it hurts _me_.”

 

It was things like this that he just couldn’t reach an agreement with her and Kaito on. He had no qualms with sitting on the sidelines and watching people fritter away their lives like fools. Why they always seemed to be so inclined to help people like that, or prevent such things from happening was beyond him.

 

“That is _never_ the right answer to something like this. It only leads to more pain and suffering in the long run, and ends up destroying the people on both sides. Neither the watchers or the watched gain anything good from it.”

 

“Pray tell, o wise woman, are you attempting to insinuate that my family doesn’t exist? Because, I can assure you, the Saihara clan is thriving.”

 

He had an bittersweet relationship with his family name. On one hand, he hated it because of what it entailed, and what it had done to him, but on the other, in this sort of society, it was nice to have something to cling to and be able to fall back on. He’d been raised with that family name, and at the rate he was going, he would die and be damned to hell with it.

 

Even if it was a legacy that most couldn’t, or just plain wouldn’t be proud of, he had to be proud of it, in spite of himself. Hating his family name was a bit like hating himself; stupid, self-destructive and completely and utterly futile.

 

(Simple dislike usually got a pass.)

 

“Even so, that doesn’t mean it’s good.”

 

“It’s not like I can do anything about it.”

 

“Your own parents were ready to sell you out to avoid trouble.”

 

Shuuichi tried - and failed - to stop the sour feeling of betrayal flow through him. “So? Have you _heard_ of my great-grandmother? Her own husband quite literally set up her own murder. At the very least, I didn't choose my parents willingly.”

 

“Wait, what? What sort of family do you live in?”

 

“A mildly terrifying one with a different standard of morals than most of the society. I would have thought it would be obvious by now.”

 

“B-But…”

 

“It was a marriage of convenience, really. He was a douchebag Alpha who couldn’t get an Omega to court, snagged a Beta, got a little pissy, got an heir from her and eliminated her as soon as she’d fulfilled her duty. Nothing special.”

 

“That’s horrifying.” Misaki looked a little pale.

 

“You can’t go back and change history, now can you? The family seems to have cooled down a little since then. Just a few arranged marriages and sabotaging a the business ventures of a few other families… child’s play, really.”

 

(Excluding the possibility of tax fraud, at the least. He knew that his family had a bad legal track record, and had a very much deserved bad reputation, but he wasn't about to mention tax fraud to a person whose family was practically a minor extension of the government.)

 

(He was an Omega, not a fool.)

 

“Your family really is… something else.”

 

The politically correct way of saying, “your family is cursed,” he assumed.

 

He didn't know if it was passive aggressive of him, but part of him didn't want to reply after that, just to see her reaction.

 

She definitely looked uncomfortable, but it didn't seem like she was about to rescind her words either.

 

However, as much as he enjoyed the brief respite from actively participating actively in conversation, if they stayed silent for too long, the others would start to think that something was up.

 

He didn't want to give them the joy of being proven right, either.

 

And in order to do that, he had to swallow what little pride he had and at the very least attempt to change the conversation topic. His conversation skills might still be very clunky, but he had to do _something_.

 

This definitely wouldn't be a smooth transition, but he doubted that there could be one in such a situation.

 

He cleared his throat a little, getting her attention.

 

“So, going back to the topic of free entertainment…” he started, hoping she'd catch what he was trying to do, “...do you remember this particular ball that occurred two weeks ago? I don't remember which family hosted it, but I do remember that whoever the main celebrant was, they were wearing this bright yellow dress that looked as if it came from the West Region, of all places.”

 

“Oh, I know that person! Her family has some economic contacts in that region, and she loves the fashion there.” Her description was vague enough for him to catch the undertones.

 

Well, everyone encountered shady characters over the course of their life… and since she didn’t mention the person’s name, this particular person was definitely underhanded.

 

Unsurprising.

 

“Mm-hmm,” he said, tilting his head a little. “Interesting. I’m guessing you didn’t attend, right? Family business and all.” He kept his tone as flat as possible and made sure his expression didn’t betray anything.

 

 _This_ was going to be fun!

 

Misaki looked at him a little warily. “I haven’t heard much about it either. Did something happen?”

 

“Ah, not much, really... except for the Alpha who ended up swinging on a chandelier by his belt.”

 

The bait was dropped without an ounce of grace. He was terrible at creating suspense.

 

“What?!” Misaki looked shocked. “How?”

 

Shuuichi couldn’t help but smile as he recalled the incident. “He was strung up there by a Beta he was trying to court.  And said Beta is absolutely _notorious_ for her expert knot-tying spells.”

 

“That… oh goodness…”

 

“And maybe it was the wine, but the sight of him swinging around like a drunken ballerina attempting to pirouette made me fall from my seat with laughter. I almost couldn’t finish my food; I was laughing so hard that my stomach hurt a little bit.”

 

“But the chandelier could have broken!”

 

“It nearly did!” He took a few seconds to snicker at the memory. “When people saw what was going to happen, they immediately panicked, That was when another Alpha had the smart idea of firing an arrow through the moron’s belt to cut him down.”

 

“Couldn’t they just have used magic to detach him from the chandelier?”

 

“Alcohol does wondrous things to the minds and judgment of most human beings, you know!”

 

“It’s not funny! People could have gotten seriously hurt!”

 

“In Stoneca Province? You _do_ remember how people were rushing like absolute madmen to get all sorts of securing spells put on their homes in order to prevent stupid drunkards from trashing their homes?”

 

Misaki sighed. “Oh, I _definitely_ remember that…”

 

“They sold out like hotcakes; it was so ridiculous. Her family was probably one of the first to get it; connections and all are really useful for things like that.”

 

“That _is_ true… but their actions are still risky! Whether there’s a safety net or not, unless you’re some sort of circus troupe member, people shouldn't be doing such risky and nonsensical actions!”

 

“Do you really think that people our age have the mental capacity for common sense?”

 

She paused for a moment, then shook her head. “So, what happened after that?”

 

It took all of Shuuichi's current self-control to avoid laughing at how tactlessly she'd dodged the question. Optimism could only go so far before reality became too much to ignore, was what he assumed.

 

“It - surprisingly - worked. He fell on his ass, right at the feet of the very Beta who had strung him up there. I’m sure it was premeditated; it was so perfect and it almost seemed rehearsed on their part.”

 

“This sounds like an overdramatic scene in a comedic play.”

 

“It looked _exactly_ like one, you know! And do you know how the Beta completely leveled the Alpha after that?”

 

“How?” Misaki was barely holding in her laughter.

 

“She said--”

 

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the newest mismatched little group?” At that voice, Shuuichi felt as if his stomach had ascended to another dimension and left vacant space in its wake.

 

_Amano._

 

Shuuichi felt his good mood evaporate like a puddle of water on a hot summer day as he turned towards Amano. His overbearing, floral scent was already seeping into the area and making Shuuichi’s stomach turn.

 

Misaki’s scent, which up until now had only had been airy and crisp with only a few short moments of souring a little, seemed to take a steep nosedive. He was very sure that his own scent was doing something similar.

 

Even though their personalities generally had little in common, they had a few shared principles. One of them was that neither of them liked Amano and his group of cronies. He didn’t even need to glance behind Amano to know that his posse was trailing him; their obnoxiously sickly-sweet scents already betrayed their presence.

 

Disgusting.

 

“It’s a pity that you’re spending so much time with someone like him, Misaki. Your family would be devastated if they found out you know,” Amano said, sounding like the self-centered idiot he was.

 

Shuuichi really, _really_ wanted to make some sort of insulting retort, but he knew it would only inflame the situation and give them the reaction they wanted.

 

Instead, he decided to let Misaki handle it. They’d addressed her directly, after all.

 

“My family wouldn’t think anything of it. As long as there’s no danger involved, they’d be fine with it. And unlike the rest of his family, he isn’t a threat. No thanks to your _wonderful_ treatment, but I digress.”

 

“He deserves it! Have you _heard_ of the things that his family has done? They’re good-for-nothing leeches! He could be deceiving you!”

 

“Him? Deceive me? He can barely deceive himself, thoughtless of another person!”

 

(Shuuichi was torn between being offended and agreeing with her.)

 

“He deceives people all the time!”

 

“If you’re talking about his sarcasm, that’s less him being deceiving and more you guys being stupid, in my opinion.”

 

Shuuichi was hardly able to stifle his snickering at that particular remark.

 

“Hey! I’m running a damn business, don’t call me stupid!”

 

“And the rest of your companions?”

 

“I can’t fucking vouch for them; what do I look like? Their _mother_?”

 

“With how they tag behind you all of the time, you might as well be. If we weren’t all around the same age, their actions could be mistaken for those of children tailing their mother around.”

 

“Hey! Do I look like I’d have the time to give birth to so many children? This isn’t the age of our great-grandparents; I have an actual life to live out here!”

 

He.

 

He had completely missed the point.

 

Shuuichi had no idea whether to laugh, cry, or do both simultaneously.

 

“Are… are you _serious_?!” Misaki seemed to be undergoing the same series of emotions that he was, but with more extreme results.

 

“Serious about what?”

 

“Serious about what you just said.”  


“Of _course_ I am! Do you think someone with my intellect would give birth to such mindless _morons_ such as these?”

 

Misaki smirked.

 

Shuuichi’s jaw dropped.

 

Amano’s face turned into an expression of shock.

 

And chaos erupted the very next second.

 

Amano had forgotten one critical thing: that no matter how powerful you were, insulting the people that one tended to drag around like devoted slaves was _not_ a good idea unless one had them under heavy mind control.

 

(And say what you would, but Shuuichi was ready to bet that Amano didn’t have the magical aptitude needed for that. No one in his province really did, but he was sure Amano had among the least propensity to be able to display that sort of ability.)

 

(Maybe there was a teensy weensy bit of bias there. A pinch, maybe. Nothing more than that, he was very, _very_ sure.)

 

(However, bias or not, it was still true! He was sure of it.)

 

They devolved into infighting so quickly that Shuuichi’s head almost started to spin. So much for their freakish hivemind behaviour; as soon as their leader said one thing that didn't automatically fit in their preconceived scripted idea of him, they scattered like dead leaves in the wind.

 

Some of them started fighting amongst themselves, trying to single out which little section of people that Amano _had_ to have been referring to, because it simply _could not_ have been meant as a general insult! Oh hell no, _some people_ had to have pissed Amano off, and whoever they were, they’d better confess right _now_!

 

Others went to attack Amano directly, and failed dramatically. For his credit, the fool could actually fight half-decently, so he could hold his own for a little bit.

 

Either way, this was a beautiful, spontaneous mess.

 

Shuuichi couldn’t help the snickering that overtook him. They’d imploded on themselves so quickly that it seemed to be playing out like some sort of surreal comedy. He started laughing even more as the full reality of the situation hit him This was - quite literally - free entertainment, and the only thing that could make things more perfect was a large plate of food for him to dig into.

 

Beside him, Misaki was folded over in laughter, evidently pleased with the havoc that her clever wordplay had wrought.

 

He was starting to _really_ crave food at this point. It would make this moment completely and utterly _perfect_!

 

“Misaki!”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Can… can we get some food from the kitchen?”

 

“ _Please_!”

 

…---...

 

The fighting.

 

Was.

 

 _Glorious_.

 

Shuuichi didn’t know what was better: the nobles who called him “uncivilized” and “brash” fighting like underpaid laborers drunk off their asses in a tavern, or the delicious taste of the chicken he’d snagged from the kitchen.

 

Yes, an entire chicken. He didn’t care about the moral consequences of indulging in such greed; the chicken tasted good, and he didn’t give a fuck about what all of those pious, hypocritical fools that seemed to make up around half of the population in Stoneca.

 

(He considered himself to have been lucky to have been born and raised within the morally bankrupt area of the province.)

 

(He also considered himself grateful that they were allowed to take food from the kitchen at their own discretion. More food was being cooked on their account, and it would be simply _ungrateful_ if all of that delicious, tasty food went to _waste_ , now wouldn’t it?)

 

(He’d been beside himself with joy when he’d asked Kaito about that, and the little embarrassment that had initially risen when he’d asked the question had been unceremoniously whisked away in favor of happiness and excited babbling about all the foods he hoped to eat. Surprisingly, Kaito had sat through the entire thing.)

 

(Then teased him half to death over how “cute” he’d been. Cute? _Cute_? He was supposed to be cold and unapproachable, not _cute_! Absolutely nonsensical thinking was what that was. Alphas and the ridiculous things they said…)

 

Misaki had also chosen to indulge in some tasty food, choosing to eat a nice-looking blueberry pie. It _almost_ made him feel even hungrier than he already was, but he calmed his stomach down by reminding it that he could definitely get some pie later.

 

That, and the fact that he could barely entertain the thought for over three seconds at a time because the fighting was completely and utterly _ridiculous_.

 

He’d never seen such absurd catfighting before in his life. The surprising thing that all of them were completely sober. Their scents were a mix of confusion and mild anger, and their so-called attacks were some of the least coordinated actions he’d ever seen.

 

Even though they’d been goaded into a trap, they should have had the common sense to remember _some_ amount of the fighting techniques they’d been practicing for the last eight damn weeks! But no, they didn’t. In the few instances that they did, they looked like…

 

Well, they looked like flailing idiots desperately trying to hold their own against terrified cats.

 

And it was gloriously absurd to watch.

 

Trying to watch people use sloppy fighting techniques against others who were either reacting like pissed-off cats or kindergarteners attempting to play-fight was both stupid and hilarious, to the point that he’d laughed so hard that his stomach had hurt a little bit from the sheer force if it. His chicken had almost fallen off his lap with how hard he’d laughed at times.

 

It was better than any other fight that he’d had the privilege of seeing, and he did _not_ want it to end.

 

Beside him, Misaki seemed to be enjoying the comedic sight a little more than he was, not that he could blame her. Her eyes were watering with mirth, and her grip on her fork was a little precarious, the large morsel of pie on it wobbling slightly insecurely on the tip of her fork.

 

Surprisingly, this entire scenario just seemed nice and peaceful.

 

(Not to be overly sentimental, or prove either she or Kaito right, but he felt that this was… a _little_ nicer than staying by himself and reading. Though he could have done without the drama that had started up prior to the entertainment arriving.)

 

He didn’t want it to end. Not until he'd finished his chicken, at least.

 

The imaginary icing in the cake would have been if he could have potentially found a bucket, filled it with cold water, and splashed it all over them to get them to break it up. It was how unruly fighting animals were separated, after all, and the same principle applied here.

 

Better yet, he could just leave them behind to continue their nonsense and let them get discovered by some of the castle staff. A double-strike on their honor, because not only would their egos be severely bruised by getting found out by people they considered little more than trash, but the two people who had caused the fight would be a safe distance away, not to be seen until the next day.

 

Both options sounded absolutely tantalizing; he almost didn't know which one he wanted to choose! Maybe he could ask Misaki for a little advice on this crucial decision…

 

...wait.

 

Were those… footsteps behind him?

 

Footsteps in the grass behind him?

 

…what the hell? Was he hearing things? There was only one way to find out…

 

His head snapped backward just in time to see Kaito, looking both serious and a bit confused at the same time, with a small group of guards behind him.

 

The relief at that was quickly squashed by the fact that the prince of the Luminary Kingdom was with actual _guards_. Kaito had never walked around with guards before, so this was a good sign that something was awry.

 

Kaito’s scent was agitated, a mixture between fear and uneasiness that put Shuuichi on edge. The scents of the guards around him were sharp with confusion and shock, putting Shuuichi on edge even more.

 

He wanted to ask what was wrong, but…

 

That wouldn’t be the best thing to do right at this second, now would it?

 

“Before you say anything,” Kaito said, simultaneously solving the problem as well as completely and utterly derailing Shuuichi’s train of thought, “can I ask why you two look as if you’ve been binge-eating while watching the rest of the nobles from your kingdom… _attempt_ to fight?”

 

A pin could have dropped, with how silent the area seemed to have gotten.

 

Shuuichi was sure that Misaki and the other nobles had probably noticed the group behind them, but for the life of him, he couldn’t do anything but try to stop himself from displaying an unusually large smile.

 

The situation had gone from mildly confusing to threatening to bemusingly funny so quickly that Shuuichi had no idea how to react. And as usual in such situations, he felt like smiling for no real reason.

 

He had no idea if it would make the situation better or worse.

 

He probably looked weird, with the way his cheeks were twitching with the way he was trying to stop himself from smiling like some sort of lunatic…

 

It probably looked worse than the actual smile would.

 

At that realization, Shuuichi just let the wide, awkward, slightly disturbing smile spread over his face like dye sinking into fabric.

 

“Do you have a problem with people enjoying free entertainment?” Maybe it was because of the abrupt appearance of the prince with a small pack of _guards_ and how the entire little party seemed to be on edge, but Shuuichi was starting to feel a little worried.

 

And that question had definitely come out in a way that would cause problems.

 

(Fantastic.)

 

“No, I don’t,” Kaito replied. “What I have a problem with is all of you being outside at all. Haven’t you heard the news?”

 

“What news? The gossip chain’s been rather slow lately.”

 

The amount of snide in this one was a bit more deliberate, but Shuuichi still felt that vague sense of uneasiness.

 

“Some Enoshima Empire spies were recently apprehended in the kingdom. And if you weren’t able to guess, they were targeting the palace.”

 

Shuuichi felt as if his intestines had spontaneously fallen out of his abdomen and had been replaced with air. His head felt as if it had been stuffed with cotton, and he felt his goosebumps rise on his skin despite the warm weather.

 

He heard a few people gasp, but he couldn’t be bothered to identify them because his brain suddenly felt as if it was melting.

 

He felt his jaw drop open even as the world around him started to spin.

 

The overwhelming majority of scents in the area were running full-tilt to confusion and fear, making bile rise in the back of his throat even as the question forced itself out of suddenly numb lips.

 

“What?”


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of the bad news delivered last chapter.
> 
> Things go a little haywire, not gonna lie.

* * *

**CHAPTER FIFTEEN**

Shuuichi felt as if he was trapped in some sort of dull haze. Or sealed in some sort of living nightmare. The slightly unsteady cycle that he had gotten used to over the past few months had gloriously crashed itself, resulting in something akin to a disastrous carriage wreck.

 

One which was in the middle of a busy intersection, completely and utterly making traffic divert its course in ways which were causing horrendous accidents.

 

The wreck was also on fire.

 

He could almost see the disaster in his mind’s eye. He could almost smell the smoke, hear the crashes and terrified screams of bystanders and people who had been so unfortunate as to have their own carriages upended in the madness. He could already hear the sound of people’s bodies being crushed under the hooves of panicked horses who couldn’t be calmed down.

 

It was complete chaos.

 

Some might call him overdramatic, but… it was better for him to be imagining such a thing than to take to what most of the rest of the people from his province were doing. He was half-sure that the screams he was hearing weren’t entirely figments of his imagination.

 

If there was ever a time that he wished he had a bottle of wine with him, this was it. Rules be _damned_ , by this point he would drink it straight from the bottle like some sort of villager, just to momentarily forget this madness.

 

Unfortunately, he was still painfully, _painfully_ sober.

 

He also had to think of the thing that he had been desperately trying to avoid thinking about.

 

The Enoshima Empire was… indeed still functioning, and spies from that particular circle of hell had actually been sent to the Luminary Kingdom. Not only that, but they had almost gotten to the palace.

 

As soon as he’d heard that news, he’d been half-sure that his mind had partially shut down.

 

The only emotion he’d been able to feel had been a dull surprise, and it lasted even as Kaito had told everyone the details. The spies had been apprehended just a little bit over an hour earlier, and they had almost managed to escape notice.

 

They had disguised themselves as simple immigrants who were looking for odd jobs. Nothing too suspicious, obviously. They also blended in rather nicely, thanks to the fact that the Luminary Kingdom, in general, was a place that was known for being a birthplace of innovation. It, along with a few other kingdoms - which included the Kirigiri Kingdom - was known for a particular field where numerous advances were made. Specifically, the Luminary Kingdom was known for its innovations with magical technology that could be used to make daily life more convenient. With the way the world had been running towards it, it was a place that many people from other kingdoms wanted to visit or immigrate to.

 

That made it one of the more… diverse areas of the South Region. It also meant that using the cover of being an immigrant was something most people wouldn’t bat an eye at. As long as one didn’t have a criminal past, one could get along rather well.

 

Apart from picking a rather unsuspicious cover identity, the spies had initially seemed to have airtight alibis. In fact, they would have been able to go forth on their merry way if not for - ironically - a few bystanders from the Kirigiri Kingdom who had been loitering around near the place where they were being interrogated.

 

Why?

 

The South Region was known for its resistance to mind-altering magic, but it also hosted two clashing general personalities. The more common one was a rather easygoing attitude towards virtually everyone and everything. Absolutely anyone could be passed over as long as no attempts at mind-control magic were detected. It was the personification of blind trust, to say the least.

 

The less common attitude - and, naturally, the one Shuuichi had been brought up around - was an almost stupefying amount of paranoia to things that seemed like inconsistencies or mind tricks. The personification of blind suspicion, essentially.

 

The Luminary Kingdom seemed to be part of the places that preferred the first style of thinking, while the Kirigiri Kingdom was one of them that preferred the second style of thinking.

 

The Luminary Kingdom’s method of thinking things through was useful for two things. The first thing it was useful for was letting it be more open to new people, which could lead to more opportunities for trade and easier negotiations. The second thing it was useful for was making sure that the people didn’t prefer to hide behind a series of smoke and mirrors when it came to important events and topics. It was refreshing for a lot of people who traveled there to be able to come to a place where they didn’t have to over-analyze every single thing that everyone said and did.

 

The disadvantage to that style of thinking was, ironically, their easy-going nature made it hard for them to nip unfortunate incidents in the bud. Oh yes, people could _suspect_ that Person A was probably responsible for what happened to Person B, or at least knew something about the cruel machinations involved, but they couldn’t get solid enough evidence because they were afraid of causing “needless controversy.”

 

However, if such an incident happened in the Kirigiri Kingdom, controversy be damned, over half of the kingdom would be scouring for all possible information on it. Often, both Person A and Person B would be exposed for having done some form of illegal activity.

 

While it wasn’t always effective in getting someone getting tossed through the legal wringer - for example, his clan - ninety-nine percent of the time, they were run through it surprisingly thoroughly. The reason people continued to commit crimes was usually for one of two reasons.

 

Reason one was that sometimes, the person or group had become so influential in their particular criminal niche that removing them would cause a stupid amount of chaos and a steep increase in crime. (See: his clan, again.)

 

Reason two was that people would be unwilling to let a particular group or individual get prosecuted just to cover up their own crimes. Selfish, but at times it could be at a level that could completely fuck up the legal and social structure.

 

They were very similar reasons, but in the end, these made up a very, very small percentage of such crimes. For the first reason, there was usually a very sizeable amount of evidence against whoever the person was, but people collectively chose a lesser evil rather than absolute chaos. For the second reason, there was a lot of covering up and denial involved.

 

In the end, the core reason was that nobody wanted to completely uproot the long-held societal values and traditions in pursuit of something that would only bring misfortune. As such, those things were usually covered up as best as they possibly could be afterward.

 

In fact, that had become a priority over the past few years in his province. A very, very high-ranked one. Rumor had it that the crown princess, Kyoko Kirigiri, was a good part of it. The reason why was because her upbringing had been… odd, if he said so himself.

 

She had lived with her grandfather, who resided in the East Region, for most of her life, and had somehow managed to receive all of her royal training there, in a manner that the gossip channels were still trying to successfully discover.

 

Ever since she had returned a few years ago, it was said that she had started making reforms in some of the more important provinces in the kingdom, and around half of the unsavory characters in Stoneca had started panicking, afraid that there was a chance that they could get their livelihoods snatched away from them.

 

That had initially spread mass panic, before things had cooled down, mainly to try and avoid any extra attention being brought to them. It seemed to have been working quite well… until this entire fiasco with the Enoshima Empire, that was.

 

Fantastic, wasn’t it?

 

Both attitudes had their advantages and disadvantages, depending on the situation. One definitely left more unhappy people than others, but the system it had created was still sustainable.

 

However, in this case, the less confrontational situation could have resulted in the Enoshima Empire spies successfully infiltrating the palace.  

 

What a situation.

 

This would be the only time Shuuichi could say that he felt vaguely thankful that some people from his province had decided to coincidentally take a trip here sometime after the initial controversy that had landed him over here. Sure, they could actually be here for legitimate reasons, but the length that some people would go to in order to discover gossip was… it was... something.

 

And, coincidentally, they had taken the same route that the spies had allegedly taken to get there.

 

One thing that people from his province had in common was that they were stupidly alert when it came to observing people and events. And none of the things the spies said lined up with what had actually happened on the journey.

 

A little quizzing had brought the inconsistencies to light, and after they had been rooted out, the spies had _snapped._

 

They had gone absolutely ballistic, and shed their now completely useless disguises. They had started attacking both the interrogators and innocent bystanders alike, with a ferocity that had apparently left many people injured.

 

In short, it was a blessing that the guards had been called in time.

 

After Kaito had finished telling them what had happened, things had rushed by like a whirlwind. Shuuichi couldn't even remember some of the things that had happened, all he remembered was panicking and people screaming.

 

Whatever the case, he had ended up converting his bed into an impromptu nest, and he was regretting his choice a little. He felt paranoid, despite the fact that all of the lights were on, he was covered in around five layers of thick blankets and pillows, and how he kept casting a scanning spell every few minutes.

 

Nobody that shouldn’t be in the palace had gotten in, was what the result of the scanning spell told him each and every time. But the more he cast it, the more he was painfully aware that he had no idea who most of the people who stayed in the castle were.

 

Dread seemed to have taken up permanent residence in his stomach, because for the life of him, he couldn’t bring himself to move. He cursed the fact that he couldn’t cast a sealing spell on his room anymore; he knew for a fact that he would feel a lot safer if he could block out everything and everything that the outside world had to offer.

 

…

 

…

 

The halls outside were quiet. Not the normal quiet that signified that people were simply going about their daily business, not at all. The fear behind the silence was palpable, and ever since Shuuichi had realized that, he’d started sweating as if he was going to die of terror the very next second.

 

He could feel his intestines slowly twisting themselves into tight knots as time went by. Hell, he could even feel individual drops of sweat running down his back.

 

He’d never felt so terrified in his life, and he hated it. He hated it with his entire being.

 

...

 

The silence was occasionally broken by hushed whispering and hurried footsteps. However, they seemed to come at random, and he wasn’t sure if he’d come out of this with his heart functioning the same. It seemed to leap into his throat every time he heard a sound that he couldn’t trace to himself or something within his room.

 

To think that earlier in the day, he’d been happily eating an entire chicken while watching others make fools of themselves. It seemed like a vague memory now.

 

Emotions really did cloud one’s mind.

 

He wished he could summon back the steady apathy he’d gained for life over the past few years. His mind seemed like an irritated bee’s nest, buzzing and buzzing as if it would burst open any second.

 

He wished he knew what was happening outside.

 

But he was half-certain that if he so much as moved an inch from his nest, that something would go wrong. A completely stupid and baseless fear, he knew that. But he couldn’t stop his mind from flinging itself from one outlandish fear to another, rendering his body immobile in the process.

 

The Luminary Kingdom had a good security system in place. He knew that. But he still felt afraid of something bad happening.

 

Not that stewing in his own fear was helping him think straight, anyhow. Evidently, decision-making was not his forte.

 

How unsurprising.

 

He jolted at the sound of footsteps out in the hallway.

 

How superb. However, there was no whispering with it, and unlike before, it sounded as if it was only one person.

 

They also didn’t seem to be in a hurry.

 

How strange.

 

Then he heard a door opening.

 

...that was odd. Why would there be any doors opening around this area? As far as he could tell, he was the only person here. Everyone else was…

 

Where were they?

 

He had no idea where they were.

 

Fantastic.

 

The air in his room shifted.

 

Weird.

 

_Wait._

 

A door had opened, and the air had shifted in his room accordingly.

 

…

  


_Had someone just opened his door without him noticing?_

 

Had he lost what few observation skills he had been taught? How in the world had--

 

He could feel the blankets he’d piled above himself start to move.

 

He wasn’t the one moving them.

 

Shuuichi put two and two together, and fear seemed to rush through his very soul.

 

Instinct took over from there.

 

…---...

 

Things had, luckily, gotten under control quickly. The spies were currently being deepest, most secure dungeons that the palace had, and things were starting to de-escalate a little bit.

 

However, Kaito still felt worried.

 

Understandably, when the news had hit, some people had immediately started running to take cover somewhere until everything was safely resolved. There had been chaos for a few minutes, before the situation had been resolved as best as it could be,

 

From there, after that, it was a matter of locating everyone in the palace to make sure that they hadn’t run off the castle grounds in fear, and to make sure that they were safe.

 

He’d just gotten out of the third meeting of the day. The good news was that most people had been located and had been informed. The bad news was that some people were still missing. Some of the guards had been assigned to find them, and so everyone should be accounted for within the hour.

 

In spite of that, he couldn’t help but feel worried about Shuuichi. So far, he hadn’t been located, and knowing him, he’d gone and holed himself up somewhere alone. While that would initially seem like a good plan, it wouldn’t be so in the long run. Assuming that the palace had been infiltrated, he’d have painted a target on his back. He would be alone, most probably half out of his mind with fear and unarmed.

 

In other words, an ideal person to kidnap.

 

Kaito sighed, shaking his head. The palace hadn’t been infiltrated, thank goodness for that. Thinking of doomsday scenarios would do absolutely no good in this situation.

 

Besides, in addition to the guards, Soichiro was also looking for the currently missing people. And Kaito knew for a fact that Soichiro could find people easily, since his particular magic inclination made it easy to track down people’s auras. In this situation, he was in his area of concentration, so there wasn’t anything to worry about.

 

The sheer strength of Shuuichi’s sealing spells had been something that had initially taken Kaito aback. It was a few levels short of an enchanted safe, which in some situations, could be considered a good thing. In this particular situation, what was likely was that he managed to seal himself off so well that he would be nigh impossible to find, or seal the room and inadvertently trap someone else in with him. Said person might not be on their side, and could cause a lot of potential damage.

 

Luckily, a counterspell had been put in place, eliminating the chance for that kind of scenario to unfold. But if Shuuichi discovered precisely how it had been placed, there was a chance that he could break it. The only good thing about the situation right now was that he was probably too scared to think of that. The bad side of that was that he would be panicking, and that might not bode well for whoever happened to find him.

 

Maybe he was being just a bit pessimistic; it wasn’t like--

 

**_“AAAAAAAAAAAH!”_ **

 

Kaito winced as he clamped his hands over his ears. He’d heard that scream before…

 

The good news was, Shuuichi had _definitely_ been found.

 

The bad news was that whoever had found him would definitely be paying a visit to the royal healer, because he had no idea how someone would get out of that without some sort of hearing damage.

 


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shuuichi doesn't like getting chased.
> 
> Kaito is worried.
> 
> Soichiro (Plot Device C) gets a bit of the short end of the stick early on 
> 
> Things come together nicely in spite of that.

**CHAPTER SIXTEEN**

Shuuichi had no idea how he’d gotten into this situation.

 

For the second time that day, he had found himself getting carried over someone’s shoulder like he was a sack of potatoes, and this one seemed to be going at a much faster pace than Misaki had bothered with.

 

However, this time, he wasn’t simply staring in shock. In fact, he was sure that his assailant would end up with quite a few bruises by the time they decided to put him down. It wasn’t like he regretted it either. What he was wondering was how this particular assailant was still standing.

 

And, of course, how he’d been caught in the first place.

 

It had been right after he’d screamed at whoever the first assailant had been. As soon as he’d regained control of his body, he’d leaped from his bed like a startled rabbit and made a beeline for the door. From there, he ran as fast as he could in what he assumed was in the opposite direction of where the assailant had originally come from.

 

The way he’d run into the person who was currently manhandling him was… was a little ridiculous, if he was honest.

 

He’d disobeyed one of the cardinal rules that had been drilled into him when he was young: he hadn’t put his full attention on what was ahead of him while he was running, instead choosing to alternate between looking forward and checking behind him every few seconds. He did far more of the latter than the former, and that was what had ultimately led him to run straight into this new assailant.

 

Here was where the odd part came in.

 

Shuuichi, as an Omega, was around the lower end of the spectrum of physical strength and endurance. Like most nobles, athletics had been the bane of his existence, and when he’d finally presented as an Omega, he had been overjoyed at the fact that no longer could he be tortured with ridiculous outdoor pursuits for the sake of “learning”.

 

(That was the straw that had broken the metaphorical camel’s back for his father. After he’d initially presented, his father had become even more distant from him than before. Not like Shuuichi really cared about that, but things in the house had become noticeably tense after that.)

 

That had been the beginning of an enduring thankfulness for the fact that Omegas were still generally overlooked when it came to most things of that nature. He was fine with other Omegas performing all sorts of athletic feats; that was their business. However, he knew that his family name would paint an easy target on his back. The fact that he was useless at athletics was balanced out by his proficiency at using magic to hide.

 

He was, to put it simply, weak and maybe a little small.

 

So, imagine his shock when he’d run into his current assailant and somehow managed to literally knock the guy down. Either the guy was also pretty weak, or he’d been running faster than he originally thought.

 

The first option had been challenged after the guy had gotten up, slung Shuuichi of his shoulder as if he weighed nothing, and started running with him. Shuuichi had been shocked for exactly one second before beginning to struggle.

 

Some sort of magical seal had been put over his mouth, and it seemed to have knocked out his vocal cords, so he couldn’t scream. None of the fighting techniques he’d been able to learn would help in this situation either, so he went for the next best thing: panicked struggling. He quickly formed some claws with magic and started scratching at the assailant’s back like some sort of feral cat, and the guy was somehow still standing, and hadn’t even slowed down one bit.

 

Either the lunatic had some sort of ridiculous healing factor, or he hadn’t gotten a good look at them.

 

Whatever the case, he didn’t like this. Not at _all_.

 

He started scratching even more intensely, trying to slow the guy down at the very least. However, no dice. This lunatic either had a stupid amount of endurance, had a serious regeneration spell going on, or had some sort of stupid natural ability that rendered him mostly immune to damage sustained like this.

 

He was running out of options, so he started kicking the guy as much as he could. He probably looked like a petulant child getting forcefully carted off to tutoring, but by this point, he couldn’t feel too embarrassed over this.

 

Self-defense was more important in this situation, no matter how ineffective and absurd-looking it was.

 

Luckily enough, the assailant seemed to be slowing down a little bit.

 

At least he’d gotten an opening. But what would he do with this newfound opportunity?

 

…

 

It was stupid, but it could possibly work.

 

He stopped his scratching attack to charge up some mana in his hands, then slammed them down on his assailant’s back.

 

It worked.

 

Shuuichi felt his attacker start to drop to the ground, and he kicked and squirmed around as much as he could in an effort to get free. He succeeded, but not without initially falling down with his attacker. Luckily, he was able to get up quickly and immediately start running in the opposite direction.

 

He would hide in a place where he would be safe.

 

They wouldn’t be able to find him after this. Not at all.

 

He’d had enough scares for one day.

 

…---...

 

It had been hours since any trace of Shuuichi had been detected.

 

How someone who had lived such a sheltered life had gotten the skills to virtually erase all possible signs of themselves in such a short period of time was beyond him. However, remembering that Shuuichi’s family definitely had a sizeable amount of enemies at their throats, not to mention the absolutely nonexistent relationship between the parents and their child, made it seem more plausible.

 

The way Shuuichi seemed to insist on sealing himself in his room when given the chance could stem from something related to that. Getting nagged by people who didn't even want to pretend to hear what you had to say was something that nobody wanted, and the only way to get out of such a situation was to either go to a friend’s house for the duration of the ridiculous behavior or hide in a place where they were unlikely to find you.

 

The first option had absolutely no chance of working thanks to their reputation, so the second was the one he defaulted to.

 

Kaito had to admit it; he was definitely impressed. The only problem was that some people were getting antsy.

 

Everyone else had been accounted for, but with one person missing… it was uncomfortable, to put it simply.

 

The only thing that was assured was that he wouldn’t have left the castle grounds. Unlike a few nobles from his province, he hadn’t voiced any urge to go outside of the castle walls, and with the way Misaki had to either drag or carry him outside to get some human interaction, it was obvious that he would have otherwise holed himself up in his room and forgotten about other people.

 

Eliminating the possibility meant that he could be outside saved a lot of effort.

 

The problem was that the palace wasn’t exactly small. And knowing Shuuichi’s esoteric behavior, he wouldn’t be in any place that anyone would even think of looking for him in.

 

Besides, some members of the guard thought that Shuuichi had a lot to answer for, since he’d somehow managed to temporarily deafen one guard member and severely injure the personal servant of the prince.

 

That had been a little hard to defuse, but between himself and Soichiro, they had managed to get the guards to finally stand down on this issue.

 

However, he was honestly worried about Soichiro. Soichiro Furutani was one of his most trusted confidantes in the palace, and one of his closest friends. His magic was heavily-defense based, seeing as his signature ability was stupidly accelerated healing. It was a running gag that it was lucky Soichiro had that healing factor, because if he didn’t he would be one of the royal infirmary's best patients.

 

In this case, however, things were a little harsher than usual. When they’d found him, it had been a small effort to remember that he _hadn’t_ been attacked by a wild animal.

 

The back of his shirt looked as if it had been savaged, with long scratches going from his mid-back to his tailbone, and the amount of dried blood wasn’t exactly something that could be simply shrugged off. Everyone had unanimously agreed to make him go to the infirmary just in case his healing factor hadn’t caught everything.

 

Unsurprisingly, it had.

 

When he’d asked Soichiro about just why Shuuichi had reacted that way, the Beta had just shrugged.

 

“He was probably panicked out of his mind from whoever he’d run into before. He wasn’t even looking where he was running; he just crashed into me like a bat out of hell. I was able to get him at least three-quarters of the way to you before it got too painful to continue.

 

“He’s got razor-sharp instincts; I’ll give him that. I haven’t known any noble to scratch so intensely when they were being carted off. I'd say that the mana claws he made were somewhere around four inches long, and he scratched at my back as if he was trying to save his life.”

 

At that, Kaito had just hoped that Shuuichi would be okay, wherever he chose to hide. He wasn’t the only one who had reacted negatively to this; some others from his kingdom had grouped together and locked themselves in a room, and didn’t seem to intend on coming out for a long time.

 

Some of the castle staff were practically shocked senseless, to the point that activity in the castle had practically ground to a screeching halt. Not that he could blame them, if he was honest. Even though they had been expecting something like this, the Enoshima Empire had stayed loyal to their strategy of springing at unexpected times.

 

Security would get a lot tighter after this, that was for sure.

 

He couldn’t let the kingdom become so open to attacks; he was not going to be the ruler that broke three hundred years of peace with carelessness. Nothing like that would happen on his watch. His parents had raised him better than that, and he wouldn’t let anyone’s expectations down with mere carelessness.

 

He would make sure of that.

 

He sighed. This had barely avoided being a complete and utter disaster. The only good thing about this was the fact that there had been no casualties when the spies had gone berserk. There had been several injuries, however. The people who had been affected were getting royal compensation for that, and the spies would be grilled as intensely as possible.

 

Even though the Luminary Kingdom had enjoyed such a long period of peace, before this, their technological advances had been invested in weaponry and torture devices. Even today, he could safely say they ranked just a little below the Alea Kingdom when it came to ancient torture devices.

 

Some might call it cruel, but there were _reasons_ why the Enoshima Empire was feared. He hoped that the torture would even work; the sadomasochism of the people from the Empire was legendary. They would willingly let themselves get almost killed, only to summon up almost inhuman strength to utterly annihilate their opponents.

 

Fear was one of the reasons why nobody wanted to start a war with the Empire. Passive-aggressive tactics like having wide spoken disdain for it? Totally fine. They would even see it as a compliment, the useless bastards. But any hint of trying anything that could cause a physical confrontation? Nobody would even think of daring to do that.

 

(After all, the Regions and kingdoms which had done that had been utterly decimated, thanks to their nobles and royal families.)

 

(It was a terrifying thing; the power that the Empire had to completely and utterly erase reason from the minds of people who were meant to serve their kingdoms, and turn their allegiance into disgusting, twisted hatred. He was grateful that the people of the South Region carried immunity to the horrors of mind-control magic.)

 

(The problem was that it was… limited in a way. Trying to “discreetly” brainwash someone from the South Region would fail miserably. However, if the person being targeted already agreed with the basic premise of what the brainwashing was trying to achieve, they would slip under the control of the spell like a fish would take to the water. And having consciously decided to ally with whatever side they protected gave them an edge above the others who had been brainwashed using the normal tactics. No amount of spell-breaking would break the spell’s hold from their mind. Most of the time, the only solution for something like that was to kill the poor bastard. Unless they could be swayed from their views, they wouldn’t cooperate.)

 

(There was a reason the South Region was known for its production of near-insane zealots who banded under a single belief. It was near-impossible to make someone from the South Region change their opinions on a topic they were firmly bent on pursuing. A blessing mixed with a curse, you could say.)

 

(It was a terrifying thing to think of. Someone that you trusted with your all, going behind your back, lying to you the entire time that they were on your side, reassuring you that no, they would never betray you… only for your unfortunate self to find out at the last minute that you'd been played for a fool.)

 

(It was terrifying to think about.)

 

(Sometimes he envied the less intelligent members of the noble class, people who had been brought up to believe that the world consisted only of themselves, their needs and wants and the various ways that they could and often did force others to do their bidding, not giving a damn about who they hurt. It was sometimes said that ignorance was bliss, and in situations like this, he sometimes felt like people who were ignorant of just how perilous the balance of keeping the world the way it currently was. It was something so frail that the slightest bit of jostling would bring about a catastrophic self-destruction sequence that he was sure nobody wanted to witness.)

 

(Being the heir to a kingdom wasn't something that was as effortless and easy as most people thought.)

 

Kaito shook his head, trying to distract himself from the somber mood he'd fallen into. He still had paperwork to fill out about this incident, and he had to finish it within… something around five minutes.

 

There was no time to waste by lingering over possible doomsday scenarios. Doomsday would come when it would and throw everyone and everything off-balance; for now, while things were still in order, he had to make sure it was maintained as best as it possibly could be.

 

Besides. Magical technology had advanced a long way since the days of old, but it hasn't gotten to the point that every single task could become self-automated.

 

How unfortunate.

 

A wry smile came into his face at the thought.

 

 _You can't let yourself get caught up in worrying,_ he thought to himself, _no matter how valid the reason for worrying is. If you get caught up in worry, what sort of example would that be for everyone else? Besides, worrying won't help the current problems go away._

 

He couldn't afford to be selfish; not when he was the future ruler of this kingdom. He'd learned from an early age that displaying his true emotions didn't always bode well for the kingdom. In times of strife, a ruler was meant to stay calm and level-headed at all times. They couldn't afford to get overly worried, or outright paranoid. That mistake could send the entire kingdom into a flurry of panic. No, he had to appear as prepared and unruffled as possible. Privately nursing fear within him wouldn't do him any good either; it could affect how he acted later, and would cause trouble later…

 

Being a leader was a bit tiring, but it was a necessary responsibility. Besides, it wasn’t like he didn’t like being a leader; he’d been trained from a young age to fit into this role, and he wasn’t about to abandon his duties because of a little trouble.

 

(Even though it might not be a… _little_ problem… panicking didn’t help.)

 

He’d wasted enough time by now; the paperwork wouldn’t do itself.

 

…---...

 

Sometimes, he _absolutely hated_ paperwork. He’d be happy if he didn’t see another piece of parchment for the next few days. He was lucky that a meeting hadn’t been called by this point, if he was being honest.

 

At the very least, it meant that there was minimal extra work to be done. All of the events that had happened today had positively exhausted him, and by this point, he just wanted to go to bed. The problem was that he couldn’t.

 

Shuuichi still hadn’t been found, a little over six hours after he’d gone missing. Kaito had to admit it: he was _very_ good at making himself undiscoverable whenever he wanted to. But by this point, he was really, really hoping that--

 

Wait.

 

Kaito whirled around to see Soichiro failing to sneak up on him. But it wasn’t that fact that made Kaito turn around. Apart from the Beta’s light lemongrass scent, he could smell Shuuichi’s vanilla and cinnamon scent.

 

“Congratulations! We found him!” Soichiro sounded far too smug for someone who had attempted to sneak up on him like a child pretending to be sneaky.

 

But in spite of that, he’d still said something that was important.

 

“Where?”

 

“Guess!”

 

“Oh come on!”

 

“Go on, guess!”

 

Kaito decided to indulge this question in the least ingenious way possible.

 

“You found him in a room.”

 

“I meant a _specific_ room.”

 

“A room in the castle.”

 

“That’s even worse.”

 

“An unexpected room.”

 

“You’re getting closer.”

 

“Oh, for goodness sake.”

 

“Aww… bored already?”

 

“I wasn’t entertained in the first place.”

 

“Can’t you at least _pretend_ to play along?”

 

“I’ll get back to you tomorrow in that.”

 

“Damn.”

 

“Can you just tell me? Please?”

 

“Alright, alright my little prince. I won’t keep you from your luxurious bed any longer than necessary--”

 

“As if you haven’t already done that.”

 

“Hey, come on now. You wound my very soul with that remark.”

 

“No worries. It should heal fast enough.”

 

“Use my talent against me like that, will you?”

 

“Poor, poor baby.”

 

“Hey! I can be called many things, but a _**baby**? _ Are you trying to bash my ego into nonexistence?”

 

“You talk as if you haven’t been doing that for the past few months.”

 

“I’m allowed to do that! Let Betas have one area to get ahead in, why don’t you?”

 

“Do you really want me to answer that question?”

 

“God damn, you get mean when you’re sleep deprived.”

 

“I’m not sleep deprived!”

 

“You are!”

 

“Not!”

 

“You try sitting through hours of paperwork without feeling out of sorts when you’re finally released from its evil clutches.”

 

“You try leading a team of disgruntled guards to perform a search.”

 

“I already did that earlier today, remember? It was around the initial incident that threw everyone in for a loop.”

 

“They weren’t disgruntled at that time. They were disgruntled when it was my turn to lead them. How do you get them to work seamlessly?”

 

“Pheromones.”

 

“Lucky.”

 

“Not always. Now, thanks for attempting to derail the discussion. Where did you find him?”

 

“Wow. Are you channeling the no-nonsense Alpha or the overly serious royal?”

 

Kaito just blinked at Soichiro.

 

...which then led to a few moments of snickering. Soichiro had a rather unique sense of humor, and it definitely showed at times.

 

“Alright, alright. I’ll tell you where I found him.”

 

“It only took you around ten minutes to get to it.”

 

“Moving on, we found him in the kitchen.”

 

Kaito distantly heard something fall down. Of all the places…

 

“The kitchen?” he parroted the phrase. “Are you serious?”

 

“The chef who initially found him nearly had a heart attack. Do you want to talk to them about it?”

 

“I don’t think I need to.”

 

“He was hiding in the pantry.”

 

“What?”

 

“People tend to hide in places where they feel comfortable and safe in.”

 

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

 

“You know what I mean.”

 

“Know what?”

 

Soichiro just smiled, looking like a cat who was proud of some chaos it had just caused.

 

Something told him that he wouldn’t be going to bed anytime soon at this rate.

 

That was just _... fantastic_.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Shuuichi and Misaki are terrified to within an inch of their lives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *bursts out of a pile of schoolwork*
> 
> I LIVE! And so does this story, yay! Long story short, I had to take a little time to look over worldbuilding and get some of the plot in order, as well as start laying boundaries for how magic is going to behave in this universe. Not only that, but things are going to start picking up the pace after this chapter. 
> 
> Let's just say that there was a delay in the spread of some important news, and the effect of it is going to be seen.

**CHAPTER SEVENTEEN**

Only two weeks had passed since the spies had been apprehended. Since then, the atmosphere in the castle had changed drastically.

 

The nobles were divided into two factions: the ones who locked themselves in their rooms for fear of being attacked if they dared to venture outside their rooms, and those who started training religiously in order to prepare themselves for any future incidents.

 

For some ungodly reason, he’d joined the second group.

 

 _Maybe_ it was because he was sick of just hiding away from everything that came his way.

 

 _Maybe_ it was because he knew that he couldn’t hide away from this particular problem unless he wanted to turn himself into a sitting duck.

 

 _Maybe_ it was because Misaki already trained like a maniac and he actually liked being around her.

 

Or **_maybe_** , just **_maybe_ ** , it was because he was some sort of closet masochist.

 

 _Who knows,_ Shuuichi thought, narrowly dodging one of Misaki’s fireballs. He was, once again, going to get his ass kicked. This had been a godawful decision, and he wanted to curse himself for actually agreeing to spar with Misaki.

 

It had been set up to help him train his skills, and an awful lot of that seemed to include barely scraping out of confrontations alive.

 

He ran some distance backward and put up a shield, bracing himself. Seconds later, an overwhelming feeling of heat crushed him, as well as Misaki’s weight.

 

Her preferred method of attack was rushing forward with a literal wall of fire in front of her, ready to terrify her opponent. He didn’t like being on the receiving end of that particular attack.

 

Not at all.

 

He expanded his shield slightly and pushed it  forward, knocking her back a few feet. He followed it up with a few explosive projectiles before forming a mana whip and a shield.

 

She was barely fazed before she charged forward again.

 

Shuuichi grimaced as he poured more mana into his shield. This had a high chance of failing, but he had to at least attempt something.

 

As he charged mana into his shield, he also charged some mana behind himself. If this didn’t work…

 

 _Three, two, one… now!_ The magic he’d charged behind himself exploded outward, propelling him forward. He raised his shield quickly and bashed Misaki in the head, throwing her back and getting her off-balance.

 

He fell back a bit, trying to figure out what he would do next.  He could either put up another shield or attack her. But either of those was a risky move--

 

Then he heard a sound that sounded as if a metal utensil had dropped. The strange thing was that it came from Misaki. He looked up at her, and for some reason, one of her ankles was covered in a soft blue glow.

 

He remembered the mana whip he had formed.

 

He didn’t think twice.

 

He quickly pumped a little mana into it at lashed out with it, hitting her ankle with a sharp sting. She hissed, falling down and clutching her ankle.

 

He reabsorbed his mana from the shield and whip, and walked towards her.

 

“What happened?”

 

“The only time I’ve felt like this is when a water elemental got in a good hit. That was good thinking for that attack, by the way.”

 

“Thanks. But I’m not sure if it should have affected you that badly. I didn’t know what I was doing, really. Beginner’s luck.”

 

“True. But quick thinking is essential in fighting, and it looks like you’re finally getting the hang of it.”

 

“‘Finally’? Cut me some slack; I just progressed from hitting a dummy to sparring with some sort of advanced fighter.”

 

“Well, at the very least, you’re improving.”

 

“Hooray. And, quick question: are you a sun celestial?’’

 

“Yes. Why do you ask?”

 

“I'm a moon celestial. If I was actually strong enough, you could be at a disadvantage. With the power imbalance, I'm the one who's going to get kicked everywhere.”

 

“You're still improving, remember? You'll be fine!”

 

“I hope so.” He moved to sit beside her. He glanced at her ankle. The burn on it didn't look too severe; a healer could reverse the damage in seconds. That was good.

 

They stayed in a companionable silence for a few seconds, before he broke the silence.

 

“Hey. Remember what we were told shortly after the spy scare?” he asked.

 

“Yeah. About the surprise attack tests that happen at random?”

 

“Uh huh.”

 

“They're meant to prepare us in case the castle is infiltrated.”

 

“Yeah, but… some of the stories that have been going around for the past few days are a little unsettling.”

 

“You're talking about the guy who ramps everything from zero to twenty in five minutes?”

 

“Uh huh.”

 

“Why are you worried?”

 

“The guy's intentions are good, but… if those rumors are true, he's a bit of a case.”

 

“I'd he's trusted in the castle, he's not as bad as you think. Most places have someone who goes a bit overboard when it comes to safety.”

 

“You forget that the guy takes the act of ambushing people to the next level. Apparently, if people hadn't managed to react quickly enough, there could have been some unwanted collateral damage.”

 

“People in this kingdom believe in the philosophy of of holding a fire under someone's ass to make them either break their limits or think quickly.”

 

“Trial by fire, huh?”

 

“Basically.”

 

“How oddly appropriate.”

 

“Uh huh… wait.”

 

Shuuichi smirked.

 

“Hey!”

 

“It was a bad pun, huh?”

 

“An exceedingly awful one.”

 

“You started it, you know.”

 

“Oh, shut up.”

 

“What? Afraid of facing the truth?”

 

“Shuuichi, please.”

 

“Please, what? I'm getting a head start on the awful elemental puns.”

 

“Speaking of which, how come you don't use your elemental magic? I wouldn't have known if not for this.”

 

“I'm terrible at general magic. Elemental magic is specialized. You've seen how bad I am with that; I don't want to know what factor you'd have to multiply it by to figure out my incompetence level.”

 

“Come on. You have to use it for _something_ if you don't use it to fight.”

 

“I only use it for minor things. Trivial things, nothing important.”

 

“Why?”

 

“‘Why,’ what?”

 

“Why do you hoard mana that you don't use?”

 

“In case of emergencies.”

 

“Emergencies like what?”

 

“Surprise attacks, of course. To either attack the offender, defend himself against them or get out of the affected area, most likely.” someone said.

 

Neither he or Misaki had spoken.

 

The voice had come from behind them.

 

And whoever they were, they sounded far too relaxed and… _helpful_ to be a typical eavesdropper.

 

Shuuichi’s mind shifted right into panic mode and he formed a shield around him before turning around. He could feel heat beside him as Misaki surrounded herself on fire before turning back as well.

 

(He briefly wondered how she didn’t burn everything she touched. It must have been a fire elemental thing…)

 

And the person who was behind them was… someone Shuuichi hadn’t seen before. Panic briefly flashed through his mind before he carefully examined the person. They seemed to be male, with long, light grey hair held back in a low ponytail. The person had lazy, dark brown eyes and a relaxed posture and lightly tanned skin.

 

Shuuichi knew he didn’t know everyone in the castle, but he was sure that he would have noticed a character like this before. How come he hadn’t?

 

He looked at Misaki, who also looked confused.

 

Then she jerked her head towards the stranger. The message was obvious. _You talk to him._

 

Shuuichi narrowed his eyes, then shook his head. _No, you._

 

Misaki scowled.

 

Shuuichi scowled back.

 

There was a small stalemate before Misaki shook her head.

 

Shuuichi didn’t bother hiding his triumphant smile. He might not have been good at physical fighting, but when it came to being passive-aggressive and stubborn, he could beat her with ease.

 

“Who are you?” she asked him, sizing the stranger up.

 

“Guess.” Shuuichi turned to stare at the person. Were they serious?

 

“Guess?” both he and Misaki were taken aback. Shuuichi had half a mind to call teleport away from the area and retreat to his room, and another half of his mind to scream. He could feel Misaki’s flames increase in temperature.

 

“Yes, guess.” He wasn’t going back on his word.

 

He bolstered his shield a little bit in response, and started wondering which of his other weapons he would charge up.

 

Then the guy laughed. “Cmon, you two, lighten up a little.”

 

“No!” If this was meant to be some form of joke, Shuuichi wasn't appreciating it at all.

 

“Just tell us your damn name!” Misaki wasn't amused either.

 

“You can call me Soichiro.”

 

Shuuichi definitely hadn't heard that name around the castle before. Looking closer at the man's clothing, he could see that, yes, it followed the traditional style of the Luminary Kingdom: practical and light.

 

Not like it was hard to imitate.

 

It might have been needless paranoia, but Shuuichi was half sure that the name that he'd given was a false one. What intentions did this person have in mind?

 

“Why are you here?” he asked, eyeing the guy a little bit. He seemed athletic, but from this distance, he couldn't discern the person's scent. Thus, he'd have to assume they were a Beta. He wasn't using his powers, and that either meant that he was benign or was about to pull something.

 

“For a little surprise training assessment.”

 

Shuuichi spared a quick glance with Misaki. They'd been told that something like this could happen. How the assessor would present themself was left to their discretion.

 

Maybe it was just him, but this seemed a bit too cryptic and suspicious for his taste.

 

“How do we know you're not lying?” Misaki asked.

 

The guy smiled. “You don't.”

 

Then he disappeared in a flash of soft green light.

 

Teleported right out of their line of sight.

 

Shuuichi felt as if his stomach had been cut out of his body. His breath caught in his throat and he could feel panic rush through him like a lightning bolt.

 

Where had the person gone? Some other place on the castle grounds? Somewhere in the general area?

 

His head from side to side frantically, fear making him pour more mana into his shield.

 

Where did he go?

 

Where the _hell_ had he gone?

 

Then he felt a slight breeze pushing against his shield from behind.

 

A breeze that felt too purposeful to be natural.

 

Instinct took over.

 

He turned around, dropped his shield and redirected the mana from the shield to make a medium-sized cluster of projectiles. He fired them off as quickly as possible, hastily spreading them out at a wide range.

 

Barely three seconds after that, he felt a flash of heat at his right side. Misaki had fired off her own attack.

 

In spite of that, the person was nowhere to be seen.

 

He exchanged a glance with Misaki, and she shook her head. He had to stay out of this.

 

Seeing how the guards hadn’t come running, this person had to be a member of the castle, and things like this were either normal when this person was concerned, or…

 

He didn’t want to think of the alternative.

 

Then he heard something rustle behind him, and an unnatural breeze that was trying to pull him backward and knock him off his feet. Misaki turned around, an attack at the ready, and Shuuichi teleported.

 

He lingered in the portal dimension for a few seconds, trying to decide where he’d teleport to. He didn’t want to get in the line of fire, but he (for some reason) didn’t want to completely flee the scene.

 

He’d pick a spot a few meters away from where he’d originally been and pray that their fighting wasn’t spreading over a large area, or else he’d be in deep trouble.

 

Here went nothing.

 

He took the plunge.

 

As soon as he landed on the grass, he put up a shield and waited for a few seconds. He could hear them exchanging blows, and the smell of smoke made him grimace. Looking up revealed that it rather thick for a fight which hadn’t even lasted a full minute.

 

She couldn’t be burning the guy's flesh and make that kind of smoke. In fact, it smelled an awful lot like bushfire smoke.

 

Bushfire smoke…

 

That meant…plants?

 

He directed his gaze a little lower.

 

Then his eyes widened as a sizeable blast knocked the guy backward sending him flying onto the grass, where he landed on his back. He huffed, before getting up.

 

It was obvious the guy was in pain, but he still got up in a relatively short time.

 

After getting hit by Misaki’s attacks? Probably multiple times?

 

Something was up.

 

And Shuuichi didn't like it.

 

He could see a glimpse of some nasty-looking burns on the side of the guy’s torso, fully on display thanks to the fact that his shirt had been ripped and slightly burned.

 

Misaki had done a good job on the guy, that was for sure. The problem was that he wasn't keeling over in pain.

 

In fact, his posture looked centered. Composed, even.

 

Shuuichi’s eyes widened as he saw a soft, almost unnoticeable green glow surround the burns, healing the damage.

 

It wasn't miracle-level, instantaneous healing, but it was much faster than what most people around his age would be able to do.

 

A strong healing factor. Something that was both interesting and terrifying to everyone who didn't have it.

 

Superb.

 

Wait.

 

 _Strong healing factor_?

 

Wasn’t that the same power that the person who’d literally tried to cart him off last week had had?

 

So on top of that, he was an air elemental. Fantastic…

 

The question now was if he had a secondary power apart from those, and if it was as infuriating as these ones.

 

A large ball of flame leaped into the sky, destroying Shuuichi’s train of thought and making him feel some trepidation.

 

Misaki had obviously found out about the guy’s healing factor, and if that was the strategy she was using, she clearly intended to literally roast him to death.

 

That would create a _lot_ of collateral damage…

 

So how would the escapist avoid this one?

 

Shuuichi redirected his gaze to the guy. He… didn't seem to be doing anything. Just looking up at her.

 

Shuuichi had a sneaking suspicion that nobody was going to like what would come next.

 

As Misaki started to descend, the guy raised his hands quickly, his hands glowing a bright green. In response, the plants a few feet in front of him started growing dangerously fast, stretching upwards and forwards until they smacked into Misaki mid-air.

 

She was disoriented, and used her flames to propel herself backwards.

 

_Oh **no**. _

 

The plants caught fire instantly, and Shuuichi almost felt his heart stop.

 

Misaki fell down heavily, and when she looked up, the horror on her face matched how Shuuichi felt.

 

Luckily enough, the plants hadn't collapsed in their own weight and immediately fallen into the grass, but the fire was working its way down rhem, slowly but surely.

 

As if tt wasn't bad enough, a gust of magically propelled wind blew right into the disaster.

 

And with that, the fire seemed to burn with renewed vigor.

 

Misaki couldn’t reabsorb that; it would be dangerous to hold that much power without preparation, and discharging it without using a complex containment spell could cause another fire.

 

Shuuichi felt as if he’d been drenched with ice water. There was only one way to stop the fire before it got too destructive, and he didn’t like it.

 

It had been years since he’d used his elemental powers for something like this. The most he used it for nowadays was to either refill a glass of water or splash some water on himself when it got too hot for him to tolerate.

 

Manifesting the amount of water needed to douse the fire would drain his mana reserve, but at this point, he had no choice. Only magic could defeat magic, after all.

 

He dropped his shield and gathered up around eighty percent of his mana reserves. His hands were almost unbearably cold, but he couldn’t help it. It was his best bet right now, after all.

 

He raised his hands up, then swung them down as quickly as he could.

 

The resulting, obscenely large splash and sputtering told him he’d achieved his goal.

 

As a reward, nausea slapped him in the face. He fell forwards, struggling not to throw up as his body alternated between burning hot and freezing cold. This was absolutely _terrible._ There was a reason he didn't like using his elemental magic, and this was it.

 

It always required so much energy from him, and he hated expending power. He hoarded mana for a reason, dammit. His supply of regular mana was intact, but his elemental mana felt painfully low.

 

He was sure that he'd burned through quite a few years worth of mana with that stunt, and he didn't want to know how long it would take to replenish it. Just thinking about that left him torn between crying and screaming.

 

However, since he’d fallen face-first on the ground, he decided to feel sorry for himself instead. Not only was he feeling as if part of his life force had been drained, but he was half-sure that Misaki had gotten more than her fair share of water thanks to that little stunt.

 

He didn’t know how strong or weak his elemental mana was in comparison to anyone else, but  the effects could range from temporary weakness to outright power blockage. He knew he wouldn’t be blocking Misaki’s powers any time soon, and he might not have any effect.

 

However, he was sure that nobody would appreciate getting drenched with that quantity of water. She could probably dry herself off quickly, but still…

 

“Exhausted already, huh?”

 

That voice.

 

That fucking voice.

 

Shuuichi never knew he could get up so fast. After all that, he still dared to--

 

The guy started chuckling, before he raised his hands in mock surrender. “Alright, alright, no more games.”

 

“ _Games_?! That was a _game_ to you? What the hell do you do in your day-to-day life?”

 

“Get scratched up by frightened nobles who decide to display their best imitation of a panicked cat.”

 

“I didn’t know who you were! And I was already panicking!”

 

“Most people in your position would have been screaming, but I’m guessing you lost your voice for a little while after that scream of the ages.”

 

“Someone was hovering over my bed like some sort of murderer! Look me in the eyes and tell me that you wouldn’t scream in such a situation.”

 

“I wouldn’t”

 

“Oh, of course not! What would you do, wet your pants? Filthy coward.”

 

“How am I the coward when you were the one who didn’t bother fighting?”

 

“Miskai and I knew very well that I can’t fight against experienced people to save my life!”

 

“Yet you won the initial fight.”

 

“By sheer luck!”

 

“At least you know that your luck is finite. Some people would be filled with pompos bravado before they’re beaten half to death.”

 

“Water is naturally a defensive element. That and that alone invalidates anything that would stir me to take up interest in active fighting. I just need to know enough to defend myself so I can run away as quickly as possible.”

 

“And you call me a coward.”

 

“My actions were justified. Yours weren't.”

 

“You sure about that? If I was an Empire spy, I'd have done worse.”.

 

“You’re talking as if they prefer using brute force when they haven't been cornered. This was an unprovoked attack.”

 

“You're talking as if the initial attack that led to partial lockdown was justifiable.”

 

“It wasn't, but if you're trying to send people into a panic, you're definitely doing an outstanding job.”

 

“Well, that means I've achieved my purpose, then.”

 

“How nice.”

 

“Trying to use sarcasm with me? How cute.”

 

Shuuichi scowled. Up close, it was obvious that this… Soichiro person was a Beta. His scent wasn't as overpowering like others. His scent was a little indistinct, but Shuuichi could pin down the smell of apples.

 

However, Shuuichi didn't know whether Soichiro was an uptight Beta or just putting up that personality to get a reaction out of him.

 

Whatever the case, he didn't like it. He'd just discovered the person who, by all rights, he should have scratched right into the royal infirmary if not for a bizarre healing factor, and apparently, the person who orchestrated some of the most panic-inducing surprise assessments.

 

If he hadn't been so drained from the stunt he'd pulled earlier, he had half a mind to stand up and slap the guy. Something about him seemed slappable. Or maybe that was just the irritation talking.

 

Either way, he wasn't going to be content to let the guy up and leave without consequences. But how would he ensure that?

 

**_“AAAAAAAAH!”_ **

 

The scream sent both recognition and fear through Shuuichi’s very being. That was Misaki’s voice, but…

 

He'd never heard her sound so angry before.

 

He turned around slowly, and saw something that looked like a vision straight from his nightmares.

 

Misaki’s entire body was covered in flames, and in addition to that, there was a strange aura around her. Whatever it was, he couldn't tell from this distance, but what he was able to tell, was that she was pissed.

 

And either he or disaster man was the target of her wrath, if not both of them. That was not an encouraging thought.

 

Not at--

 

**_“YOU’RE DEAD MEAT!”_ **

 

…she was running towards them with an expression on her face that screamed bloody murder. He found that his body had become completely unresponsive?

 

He was, quite literally, staring impending doom in the face. Just staring at it. Not moving. He was completely unable to move, or even scream.

 

His heart seemed as if it was both trying to break the confines of its ribs and stop beating.

 

He had no idea if he'd ever sweat this much before in his life.

 

He was going to die.

 

He was dead, obliterated, gone, and he hadn't even gotten to chance to--

 

“Are you going to just sit there?! Are you trying to die?”

 

Shuuichi couldn't force his mouth to respond. His jaws seemed sealed shut.

 

Before he knew it, he'd gotten hoisted over Soichiro’s back, and Soichiro had taken off running.

 

Unfortunately, lifting his head up a little granted him the terrifying sight of a charging Misaki, who indeed seemed to be intent on murdering them both.

 

At that realization, Shuuichi felt as if he'd been dipped in ice water.

 

He couldn't barely hear himself scream over the sound of the wind rushing through his ears.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Today was just so chaotic... Kaito didn't know how things had gotten so out of hand.

**CHAPTER EIGHTEEN**

Today had been… an _experience_ for Kaito. Today had been the day that the Royal Conference had decided to corner him over the security breach that the Enoshima Empire spies had caused.

 

The past two and a half months had been… something, to say the list, and that particular event two weeks ago had almost completely dependent how everything was being considered. From the tightening of security and the sharp divide between what the nobles chose to do after the situation, things were just finally managing to settle down.

 

Some had decided to go into more intensive training, while others were still in shock, holing themselves up within the castle. Frankly, he couldn’t blame them for doing so. Dragging them out before they were ready wouldn’t do anything good.

 

However, a meeting with the guards had brought a new aspect to their training, for those who decided to continue. Seeing how close the spies had gotten this time, it had been decided that, in order to make sure they were able to defend themselves well enough, there would be a few organized attacks sprung on them at random intervals during their sparring.

 

The nobles had agreed with the suggestion without much hesitation, for once not showing their famed stubbornness.

 

Thus, for the past few weeks, some of the guards had helped them hone their skills. The reports he was getting were promising. Most of them wouldn’t be able to completely suplex an intruder, but they would be able to defend themselves and stall their attacker long enough to make an escape.

 

He was still worried about their safety, but in particular, today’s particular lineup was what was worrying him.

 

SHuuichi and Misaki would have to face Soichiro.

 

Misaki was a brilliant fighter who could hold her own without much of a problem. It was Shuuichi he was worried about. His lack of training coupled with the fact that he used his magic for little else but defensive spells was a bit worrying. Defense was good, but an opponent with enough stamina could wear any defense down quickly.

 

There was also the fact that he was a water elemental who had shown barely any hint of using his elemental powers. Water might have been a defensive element at its core, but with the right circumstances and training, it could be one of the deadliest elements when it came to the sheer range of things it could manipulate.

 

The problem was that he didn't know if Shuuichi didn't use his powers much on personal principle, or if his parents had something to do with it. He suspected it was a combination of both.

 

The fact they were facing off against Soichiro was what he was nervous about. Soichiro was a laid-back person, but he had seemingly random moments of intensity that could scare people, especially when it came to fighting. Nobody knew when he could go overboard, and the fact that he could control air made most of the guards quite reluctant to be around him whenever he decided to fight.

 

He couldn't exactly blame them for being cautious after all. He'd initially met Soichiro through fighting, and that had turned out to be one of the most exhilarating fights of his life. Some would call him a bit too eager for the sight of blood, but a good fight was something he valued a highly. Not only had he had a good fight, but he'd gotten a new friend by the end of it. It was a win-win situation in the end.

 

The problem was that Soichiro could think up some really interesting and dangerous things when he got in the mood for it. And despite Misaki’s fighting prowess, Kaito couldn't help but worry. Soichiro had pulled the wool over the eyes of better fighters before, and the information he'd had on her had generously included a section that detailed the fact that her temper could be lethal when people riled her up enough.

 

It seemed to be a bit of a sick joke that Soichiro simultaneously managed to be able to knock people flat without effort and manage to get them to chase him in a blind rage afterward.

 

Some people believed that it was some sort of inbuilt counter to the madness he could think up as well has his stupidly strong healing factor. Whatever the case, it had gotten him into a lot of risky situations over the years, and Kaito had no idea how he had managed to come out unscathed.

 

Whatever the case, he hoped that things might turn out to be on the better part of the spectrum today.

 

Because after getting grilled by the other royals during the impromptu Conference today, he knew that yes, he was going to have a lot more on his plate than he'd anticipated coming into the day. For starters, the reports that they were asking, for now, were at least five times more intensive than the ones he'd been delivering until now, and as a consequence, the paperwork had almost doubled. On top of that, two people, in particular, wanted to visit.

 

Kokichi and Kaede.

 

Kokichi Ouma was the heir to the Alea Kingdom, and God, it showed. His kingdom as a whole was more well-known than the shadier areas of the Kirigiri Kingdom for their less-than-legal practices and their far from straightforward ways of interacting with others.

 

He was a five feet and one-inch tall terror, five foot three if he happened to be wearing heels. If he was wearing _sensible_ ones, anyway. He swore that Kokichi seemed to pick some of the most outrageous outfits just to fuck with him. On top of that, whenever he visited, it was guaranteed that activity in the castle would slow down, thanks to the fact that things would _mysteriously_ go completely and utterly out of order, and could only be resolved at the last minute. And coincidentally, they could never be traced back to Kokichi.

 

Kokichi was one of the most aggravating people Kaito had ever met.

 

And yet, they'd managed to come to some firm of grudging acceptance of each other's completely opposite views of the world.

 

It was the closest thing to a miracle that Kaito had ever experienced. If that wasn't already a miracle…

 

Kaede was a high-ranked noble in the Musiqua Kingdom who had an amazing talent for playing the piano and a bright personality that made people gravitate towards her with ease. Unlike himself and Kokichi, she was from the West Region, which was still in the process of recovering from what had happened to the Novoselic Kingdom.

 

So far, the Enoshima Empire didn’t seem interested in overtaking the Musiqua Kingdom, probably because of the fact that the Novoselic Kingdom was an absolute gold mine when it came to weapons.

 

(And the fact that attacks seemed to have slowed down recently was… concerning, when that was taken into account. Either the Empire was preparing something big that would once again shake the world to its core, or they were simply resting on their laurels.)

 

(Either situation was something that made him worry. The former situation meant that a potential attack would take place sooner, and the latter most likely meant that they were waiting for circumstances to fall into place, or they had already planted seeds that would make its target implode on itself.)

 

(Just the thought of that made him _intensely_  uncomfortable.)

 

Whatever the case, the Musiqua Kingdom, known for its artisans, was at the very least, temporarily safe. At the very least, it was safe until Junko decided that her Empire needed a few decorations to make it prettier, or got the urge to get cheap entertainment.

 

He was aware that it was terrible humor, but given the choice between terrible humor and terror, he preferred the humor. Being terrified out of his mind, although it was something that most people would consider valid for such a situation, was something that he couldn’t afford to dwell on for too long.

 

He couldn’t spend too much time stewing over his own problems, when he had the problems of an entire kingdom to take care of, after all.

 

However, it was days like this that made it seem like the world was against him. Not only would he have to worry about just how far Soichiro might go with whatever surprise attack he'd planned, but he also had to start making preparations to house extra guests, just so the Royal Conference could have two informants.

 

He didn't hate either Kokichi or Kaede, but he preferred not having someone basically look over his shoulder at every single thing he did, just to report to an organization that seemed to enjoy playing God a little too much at times.

 

Not like he could do much about either thing at the moment.

 

So, taking advantage of the free time he had, he decided to take a walk to clear his head a little.

 

Only to have a servant nearly run straight into him, looking as if they'd stared death in the face. And run like hell to get away from it.

 

When the servant realized who they had almost run into, their eyes widened and the stumbled backward a little, still trying to catch their breath. Kaito didn't rush them.

 

Something told him that, yes, Soichiro had gone overboard with the surprise attack.

 

“There was fire,” the servant managed to gasp. “It was around the area where Soichiro was supposed to have gone!”

 

Fuck.

 

“How was it caused?” His tone came out sharper than he'd intended it, but in this case, he didn't think anyone could blame him.

 

“Grass suddenly sprung up, far taller than it should have been… and then there was a fireball…”

 

_Fuck._

 

“Is the fire still blazing?”

 

“N-No… a deluge of water put it out!”

 

Wait.

 

Water?

 

So Shuuichi had used his elemental powers after all. That was good, but seeing that the servant had run like this…

 

“What else happened?”

 

“Screaming… and what sounded like a lot of running…”

 

Kaito couldn't help but sigh when he heard that. Soichiro seemed to have this uncanny talent for either getting chased or being injured to within an inch of his life. Some said it was nature's way of balancing our his healing factor, but at times like this, it really just complicated things.

 

“Do you know where he is?”

 

“No…”

 

Of all the times for this to happen…

 

To say that this wasn't good was a dreadful understatement. This was an absolute train wreck in at least six ways on its own, and in combination with everything else that had happened today, it was a train wreck in twelve ways.

 

And to top it off, he couldn’t even find it in order to defuse it. He sighed. Tiredness seemed to drape itself over him like a large, warm blanket. If he didn't have any responsibilities, he would have just given up on the day and gone to sleep. Unfortunately, he still had to defuse the situation, so sleep would have to wait until later.

 

Then he heard something in the distance.

 

It sounded like… screaming?

 

Listening closer, there were two voices. One was angry, and one was afraid. The angry one seemed to be yelling quite intensely. He wouldn't be surprised if there was a generous amount of swearing sprinkled in whatever the person was yelling. However, the scared screaming seemed to be a continuous vocalization of absolute terror.

 

In fact, it sounded a little familiar. Both of them did.

 

And they were getting closer.

 

Wait.

 

Soichiro was getting chased by…

 

His eyes widened and he _knew_ he had reached the correct conclusion far too late. It felt like a hole in his chest had been ripped open his heart and lungs were being forcefully sucked into it.

 

In the corner of his eye, he could see the servant cower in fear, right before a hole was blasted into the wall.

 

Soichiro ran through it as if his very life depended on it, with a screaming Shuuichi gracelessly slung over his shoulder.

 

The wall started to repair itself, the Herixia stone starting to glow a dark purple, right as Misaki, her body quite literally set ablaze.

 

 **_“GET BACK HERE WITH MY FRIEND, YOU KIDNAPPER!”_ ** she yelled.

 

…

 

…

 

He had to admit, her Omegan tone could really make someone stop right in their tracks. He did not want to mess with her right now.

 

 _Not at_ all. ****

He could safely say that Soichiro had royally fucked himself over with the test he'd administered.

 

Even though he didn't have the full story, it was obvious that he'd pushed both of them past a certain point, what with Misaki looking as if she wanted to burn him to a crisp and Shuuichi looking as if he desperately wanted to meet his maker.

 

Shuuichi looked exhausted, and it was obvious that he'd been the second person who had been screaming.

 

…

 

He really wanted to intervene now, for some reason.

 

However, he didn't want to be on the business end of Misaki’s flames. The flames were high, acting as a protective shield around her, and they were a bright blue with purple edges, effectively conveying her rage.

 

Hear the sparks and crackles of the flames from here, and the expression on Misaki’s face was downright murderous.

 

He really didn't want to be on the business end of those.

 

He eyed the wall she and Soichiro had burst through. The Herixia stone was almost finished putting itself together, and the floor under Misaki’s feet was glowing a strong purple.

 

The flame retardant spell was kicking in, thank goodness. They couldn't have the floor burning, now could they? That would be a second disaster stacked on top of the situation that was happening now.

 

The only way this situation could get worse was if someone walked in.

 

As if hearing his thoughts, the door behind him slammed open with excessive dramatic flare.

 

“Oh, _Kaito_ ~! Guess who got to receive special permission from the Conference to use the inter-kingdom portal system~!”

 

That voice.

 

The clicking of those godforsaken heels on the floor.

 

The smug aura Kaito could fucking _feel_ even though he wasn't looking at the guy.

 

The distinct scent of grapes and sugar, with that oh-so-familiar edge to it.

 

Kokichi Ouma had arrived, and Kaito couldn't help but wish he was six feet under right about now.

 

“Was… this a bad time?” another voice asked. This time, it was far less grating and more unsure of what the hell was supposed to be happening here.

 

It wasn't like he could really blame Kaede for this, now, could he?

 

The only person who could be blamed for this was Soichiro, and he would be getting his just desserts in good time.

 

A brief glance at the servant told him that, yes, they indeed looked as if they were going to die on the spot.

 

Even the sound of Misaki’s flames seemed to have quieted down.

 

He sighed and snapped his fingers.

 

This was going to be a _long_ conversation, and he was sure that there would be an _equally_ long aftermath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kAiTo iS tHaNos cOnFiRmEd
> 
> (or rather, he freezes time for around ten minutes to explain just what the fuck is happening. In spite of this, his time manipulation has some set limits. And there will be no such thing as time travel here, in the name of god.)


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shuuichi has a bit of an epiphany. Whatever the case, he doesn't like it. But he doesn't really have a choice. Grudging acceptance soon turns into curiosity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me? Write something esoteric? More likely than you think.

**CHAPTER NINETEEN**

Shuuichi was asleep. That wasn't an odd thing, or something that would be considered odd in the first place.

 

The odd thing was that he _knew_ that he was asleep. The other odd thing was that he knew that he was going to wake up soon.

 

Nobody was waking him up. His internal clock wouldn't have bothered waking him up at this time, either. He could tell it was late, and even though he was known to spend a lot of time staying up past a reasonable time to either read or listen in on gossip that he wasn't supposed to hear.

 

(He was sure that most people would be surprised that some of the juiciest rumors came not from the normal gossip grapevine, but from the servants. To this day, there were still a few rumors that he'd heard days or hours in advance while in some of his more esoteric hiding spots.)

 

(His parents weren't stupid. They were descendants of some of the craftiest bastards and bitches in Stoneca Province, after all. Thus, when he wasn't in his room and they happened to notice, they would do everything in their power to keep him from it. They could think of some of the most bullshit excuses and find all sorts of diversions to keep him away from his room whenever they happened to notice.)

 

(He had to praise their ingenuity and curse their wandering eyes.)

 

(They'd been doing it a lot more lately, and instead of leaving, carrying an insufferable aura with them, they'd begun to linger. Not in a way that most people would find reassuring, but one which was reassuring due to the fact that he'd been brought up to see it   that.)

 

(Not only that, but the talk about marriage had increased a lot, when he really thought about it. As well as talk of moving out. He hadn't understood at the time, and he hadn't cared. Looking over the events of the past two and a half months, one could imagine his distaste when looking upon those events.)

 

(Maybe it had been their version of kindness to tell him what he'd be getting flung into before he got tossed into it.)

 

(The real question was why they were even doing this nonsense in the first place…)

 

As soon as his mind wandered upon that particular train of thought, he immediately halted that in its tracks. He had plenty of problems to deal with, and he'd prefer not to waste his time recalling something that didn't have any bearing on the problems he was currently facing.

 

More than that, he could feel something within him urging him to wake up. Something instinctive, clawing it's way out of the core of his body to his limbs and head, making him feel as if his head was stuffed full of cotton and like his limbs were full of crackling energy, begging to be released. Something in his core seemed to be futilely looking for something to fill a void, and he could tell it wasn't food.

 

His eyes snapped open, and he sat up like a puppet jerked around by an inexperienced puppeteer.

 

His instincts were still clamoring for something, and in spite of himself, he wondered what it was. The feeling was similar to thirst, but it ran deeper than that; he could feel it.

 

He definitely wasn't wanting water; this hadn't been the first time he'd woken up.

 

The _first_ time he'd woken up had been much earlier. He'd blacked out at one point during the entire fiasco earlier that day and had woken up in his room. He hadn't even questioned how he'd gotten there, simply getting out of bed to take a long bath before drinking some water and going to sleep again. It had been late afternoon, he recalled.

 

And what time was it now?

 

The afternoon had definitely gone, that was for sure. It had to be night time. Something in him seemed to leap for joy at that, and the clamoring for something he couldn't identify grew more.

 

He turned to the curtains, which were - obviously - closed, and he felt a strange compulsion to open them.

 

Oh, well. It wasn't like something horrific would be waiting outside his window, so he'd better open it. If it helped his head to stop feeling like a swarm of bees had decided to make a home there, it had to be a good thing.

 

So he let his body act on its own, getting out of bed and walking toward the curtains. As soon as he opened them, a profound sense of relief seemed to pass over him.

 

The moonlight was… oddly relaxing. And beautiful.

 

Not only that, but it helped him understand why his body had oh-so-kindly dragged him out of bed.

 

He closed his eyes, savoring the sensation of moonlight washing over him. It felt familiar, like an old friend, and comforting as if it was a soft blanket.

 

Of course, he'd feel the urge to spend some time under the moonlight after nearly draining his elemental mana pool. He was a moon celestial, after all. The only way his elemental mana pool could replenish itself would be if he spent time under the moonlight. It basically entailed siphoning energy from an infinite energy source, for as long as it was needed until his reserves were full again.

 

It had been so long since he'd ever had to do this.

 

Part of him felt a small pang of sadness at that. After he'd presented as an Omega, he'd stopped using his elemental powers a lot. They were mainly needed for healing purposes after combat, and with the life, he led he didn't have to be around it. Even the offensive properties of his element were overlooked thanks to that. He could simply seal himself in his room, no problem there. His home's inbuilt defense systems would take care of most intruders, and in any drastic situations, those intruders would have to go toe to toe with his parents.

 

And die spectacularly in the process.

 

His father was an Alpha, and his element was fire. Not only that, but Shuuichi could swear that when his dad wasn't level-headed, he was thirsting for bloodshed. He was ruthless not only when it came to his “business” deals, but also when it came to fighting. Woe betide the fool who pissed him off enough to initiate a sparring match. The idiot would end up half dead, and wishing that he father hadn't been so generous as to include the “half” part of the equation.

 

His mother was an Omega, and her element was ice. And when she wasn't using it for aesthetic purposes, she could be one of the most terrifying opponents one would have to go against in their lifetime.

 

True to her element, she preferred using spears to fight. Combine spears with eyes that were used to search elaborate dresses for some of the most minor offenses when it came to how the thread was stitched, and you had a deadly combination that could find weak spots in armor with unsettling ease.

 

And they'd come together to produce a water elemental Omega who didn't care for fighting and whose only distinguishing combat trait was that he could seal rooms so tightly that he'd accidentally cut off all external air supply when he'd gotten angry and started throwing a silent miniature tantrum.

 

(He had quickly learned to create a loophole which would prevent that in the future. He had learned his lesson _very_ quickly.)

 

It was a great shame, wasn't it? It was a pretty large step backward when one really thought about it hard enough. It wasn't like he could do anything about it anymore, though. He was weak, and he doubted he'd get the strength to defeat anyone on his own soon. The most he could do was stall for time and run, really.

 

The problem was…

 

Would that strategy really keep him safe in the end? Especially in a situation like this?

 

The Enoshima Empire was known for its brutality, and he was sure that any one of their fighters would be able to brute-force their way through his shield with so little effort that it would be laughable. The only thing he was really good at was sealing himself within a room, however, in this situation, he could easily do that and seal an intruder in the room with him.

 

His athletic prowess was lacking, so he might not even manage to get away in time if any of his normal “strategies” actually worked and didn't backfire spectacularly.

 

So what could he do?

 

Apart from either getting kidnapped or killed, of course.

 

He sighed, shaking his head. The… ambush he'd had the _pleasure_ of experiencing earlier in the day had put a lot of things into perspective for him, and, obviously, he didn't like it. Not at all.

 

He just wasn't good at split-second thinking like that, thoughtless of fighting under such circumstances. Misaki had still taken the brunt of that fight, and he was the one who had managed to faint right after everything had been explained.

 

_Pathetic._

 

And on top of that, he still somehow managed to play the victim card on himself, sulking like a child.

 

To say that he was still unprepared for what would be coming next was a grave understatement. A joke with an awful punchline.

 

He was still floundering, and the world wasn't going to wait for him to regain his fitting before making him race down another unexpected turn in the road. It all depended if he managed to keep pace with it or if he fell down spectacularly.

 

He was already bad at making decisions on whether he would or wouldn't get up in the morning and now he had to decide this?

 

If this was a story, the author had a rather _interesting_ view on conflict.

 

Because, in the end, he didn't have much of a choice in the matter.

 

He couldn't hide away forever.

 

He couldn't hide behind Misaki forever.

 

He couldn't simply pretend that his problems didn't exist.

 

In the situation, he couldn't afford to be passive anymore.

 

As much as he wanted to deny every single thing that had been happening in his life lately, he honestly could not afford to do that. Burying himself under a pile of thick blankets and hiding his head under pillows wouldn't work anymore. These problems weren't childish phantasms which could be defeated by wishing them away.

 

Not were they problems that he could simply detach himself from and observe from a safe distance. He couldn't stand back and smirk as people ran around, and he couldn't laugh at people's suffering hi planning to keep it in mind to embarrass them later on. He couldn’t just pretend the situation didn’t exist and just focus on something else.

 

He was the one neck-deep in the problem. In fact, he himself was one of the _causes_ of the problem.

 

It wasn't the first time that he'd had to consider this, but it was one of the few times he didn't immediately skip to thinking about something else.

 

His stomach churned a little as he gulped dryly, his saliva miraculously seeming to disappear.

 

He felt a little nauseous, and he was glad that he hadn't really eaten much food earlier in the day. It was probably an overreaction to a simple fact, but in spite of that, he still felt as if a hole had been punched into his stomach.

 

The problem with this situation was that he was all too aware of his own limits. He'd beaten Misaki earlier in the day by sheer luck, and it had been chance that he'd managed to summon enough water at the right time in order to douse the flames.

 

He was operating on luck, and woe betide him if Lady Luck decided to turn her back on him.

 

He couldn't operate using general magic alone; most people had counters to that. And even though his element has a slight effect on them, that slight effect wouldn't help him do anything. If he even wanted to hope about inflicting any real damage, he had to focus on developing his proficiency at elemental magic.

 

And seeing just how long it had taken him to get a hang on general magic… unless there was some form of natural talent bullshit invoked, it would take a long time to become competent at using it again.

 

He knew he had forgotten the basics he had been taught when he was younger. Neither theory or muscle memory would help him at this point, so it would be very difficult to get a grasp on it.

 

People always said that nothing worthwhile came easy, but at this point, he felt like he would glare at the fool who dared to say that to his face.

 

He… didn’t have a choice.

 

Despite the fact that he wanted to give up before bothering to try, he couldn’t. He was already dead weight, and he couldn’t increase the weight other people had to drag around. That would be selfish, and in this situation, he couldn’t afford to indulge in that.

 

Even if he didn’t care about the others, he had to at least care about himself. And he did care about the others, so he was caught between a rock and a hard place.

 

He had to practice his elemental magic, no matter how useless it seemed.

 

The realization was bitter, but he knew that he had, fortunately, or unfortunately, come to the only conclusion possible.

 

He pressed his face against the cool glass of the window, sighing. He could feel the moonlight replenishing his mana reserves, and it filled him with relief. The moon was just so calming that he couldn’t help but feel relieved, in spite of his chagrin at the situation he was lodged in.

 

It wasn’t like feeling offended would do anything, so moving beyond anger would be the best thing he could do in this situation.

 

From anger to acceptance. How quaint.

 

In any other situation, he would have scoffed at the thought. In this situation, he gave himself a little leeway, opening his eyes and staring at the reflection of his room in the window.

 

Something… seemed off.

 

He changed the angle that he was standing at, revealing the empty glass that he’d drank water from earlier in the day.

 

It was glowing with a light blue, shimmering aura.

 

Remembering what had happened earlier that day, and taking this into account, he put two and two together.

 

His ability had decided to show itself again. At the very least, he wasn’t being compelled to get dragged around by a force he couldn’t identify until he found something. Probably because what he was looking for was right in front of his face right now.

 

He turned around and looked at the glass.

 

He wasn’t stupid. He understood perfectly what he was _meant_ to do to it, but…

 

Aah, he had no real choice, did he?

 

Practice made perfect, after all.

 

He filled the glass with water. Promptly, the glow transferred from the glass to the water instead, and he took the water out of the glass, levitating it towards him.

 

It was always strange to look at water, because its color changed constantly depending on what angle you were looking at it, as well as what was behind it. Currently, depending on where he levitated it, it was either dark grey or dark blue, each with silvery white highlights.

 

It looked nice.

 

He moved his hand a little bit, controlling it manually instead of telepathically. He carefully beckoned the water to come closer, and it did.

 

Controlling water was a mixture of telepathy and hoping that there were either no spirits or that your own magic wasn’t working against you. With the sheer amount of magical energy in the Luminary Kingdom, he wouldn’t be surprised if there were spirit and soul fragments scattered generously all over the place.

 

(He really hoped that nobody had the _bright idea_ of performing necromancy. He wasn’t afraid of the undead, but he was sure that unless they heavily rationed the amount of their power that they pushed into the spell, they could raise an undead army when all they intended to do was to put flesh onto dry bones.)

 

(He’d done a small amount of reading on incidents that had happened in the Luminary Kingdom in the past. He had been forced to stop not only because of training but because the few things he had found were such an odd mix of humorous and terrifying that he’d feared for his sanity if he read more without proper supervision.)

 

Either it was moved solely by his magic or there was a relatively benign spirit possessing it. He _hoped_ it was the former and not the latter.

 

Then he started moving the water around in various patterns, from geometric patterns to spirals to lazy, curved lines. Sometimes it was only one tendril of water that he used to trace out those shapes, and other times, it separated into several smaller ones.

 

It was a little silly when he thought about it, but this childish series of exercises was… making him feel… happy.

 

It was reassuring, to trace out those simple patterns just to be able to know that, yes, even thigh he might have lost what limited spark for fighting he'd had when he was little, that he still had the basics down.

 

Maybe it was just the feeling of the moon’s power flowing through him, but he felt a lot more comfortable with what he was doing now than he had been when he'd just been thinking about it earlier. It might have been a small, almost negligible power and confidence boost, but it was something at the very least.

 

Maybe he could summon up a little more water. Just a little. It was just fooling around, after all.

 

…---...

 

A little more water and soon turned into a little more than two and a half times the amount of water he'd started out with.

 

However, it wasn't as if he was complaining about it.

 

The patterns had gradually grown more elaborate until he was forming tiny little water artworks in the air. Abstract, of course, because God knew that his artistic skills were exceptionally weak whenever he attempted realism. Staring at his current “masterpiece,” he wondered what he could do with it. He didn't feel like destroying it and starting another one, and h didn't want to continue elaborating on it.

 

But what could he do with it?

 

He frowned, puzzling his head a little bit. He was fine with whatever limited artwork he'd been able to make; it was the medium that he was dissatisfied with.

 

Well, in that case… he could change it to ice, couldn't he? The powers from his mother's side of the family would help with that, at the very least.

 

Though, it had been a while since he'd frozen anything. It might take a little time for him to remember how to do it.

 

He held one of his hands out, stabilizing the mass of water where it was. He had enough mana to keep it there for a while, so all was good.

 

Then he cupped his other hand and closed his eyes, trying to remember the feeling of ice. It was common knowledge that if the thing which you were trying to do was relatively simple and you couldn't remember the steps that were necessary to create it, trying to remember the feeling of the finished product of the spell could help to recreate it.

 

And guess who had managed to forget how to make ice, of all the basic things?

 

He called up the few memories of producing ice that he had, focusing on how it had felt. The general aura ice had was a bit… odd. It was cold, and a little slippery. It pulsed with his mana flow and his heartbeat, and it felt like a barely-compressed ball of death. Its lethality was thinly veiled beneath its smooth, shiny surface….

 

…

 

His hand was getting cold.

 

And the feeling of cold was creeping up his arm.

 

He opened his eyes, and his eyed widened.

 

Small, delicate patterns that he couldn’t fully recognize crawled up his skin, creeping up from his wrist. They had just gotten above his elbow, and they seemed hell-bent on crawling up to his shoulder.

 

And what had caused this looked so, so benign.

 

A small sphere of light bluish-white ice sat in his palm, small particles of magic flickering around it like stars in the sky. It looked so smooth, like a perfect snowball. He’d be head-over-heels to have made something like this when he was younger.

 

Now, he didn’t really know what to think.

 

He looked at the water artwork he was holding in place with his other hand. Surprisingly, it was unaffected.

 

He levitated the ball of ice essence towards it slowly, and it started to change almost immediately. To be precise, it began to freeze, starting from the center and working its way to the edges. The sound of the water crystallizing made his heart speed up and made him feel a little excited.

 

So, in an impulsive move for a toddler, he practically shoved the ice essence right into it.

 

The result almost gave him a heart attack.

 

Not only did the rest of it instantly freeze, but even more tendrils and divisions started to form. The entire thing burst into something around four times the size of the original, and it kept on expanding.

 

Oh, he had fucked up.

 

Instinctively, he broke the structure, his hands clenching into fists.

 

Now he had a ball of ice essence around four times the size of the original that was still expanding, and didn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon. He cringed, thinking desperately of what he could do.

 

Just holding a ball of essence could trip off a magic detector and cause trouble. As long as he kept it in its current state, it could - accurately - tick off a magic sensor that was meant to alert experienced people that a novice had pumped a little too much energy into a certain spell and had caused a reaction that they couldn’t contain.

 

But what could he spread this out as?

 

He had no idea. And he didn’t want to risk tripping off anything. So he let instinct take over and closed his eyes against the bright glow that came off of it.

 

When he opened his eyes, he was face-to-face with a group of sharp objects. He would have begun sweating if he hadn’t felt his body temperature lowering dramatically. A brief glance at his hands showed him that not only was his right arm covered in the blue patterns, but that they were also overcoming his left arm. He could also feel the cold sensation crawling over his neck.

 

He blinked.

 

He… was not dreaming.

 

There were… ten or so ice spears staring him in the face. He could feel the cold radiating off of them, making him feel both relaxed and slightly worried. They were a brighter bluish-white than the ice essence had been, and they were glowing slightlly.

 

They were beautiful.

 

He exhaled, his breath making a bit of mist in the air. He reached one of his hands forward, pressing the pad of one of his fingers against the tip of one of the spears. He felt the skin break, and faintly felt his blood trickle down his finger.

 

The spears were so sharp, it was… a little exhilarating.

 

He removed his finger from the tip of the spear, and turned to look at it. The red blood trickled down his finger, slightly glowing blue. It was fascinating to look at… so, so fascinating…

 

He had an idea.

 

He carefully lowered the spears to the ground, setting them down as quietly as he possibly could.

 

He stared at his blood a little more, briefly wondering if it was a good idea, before taking the plunge. Instead of focusing on forming water or ice, he decided to focus on harnessing another kind of liquid.

 

His blood lifted off of his finger, first in small droplets, but then in smaller streaks. He couldn't exactly pull out a lof ot blood from such a small wound, but he wanted to squeeze out as much as he could from it. He didn’t even know when his other hand had reached to squeeze a bit more blood from his finger before he felt the telltale pressure.

 

Soon, a small ringlet of blood had formed in the air, and he felt almost hypnotized by it.

 

It was such a bright red, and that subtle blue tint made it look so delicate and beautiful… he felt as if he couldn’t look away…

 

_Clank!_

 

He turned around as if someone had pushed him, looking for the source of the noise.

 

The night was still, and nothing looked amiss. His imagination must have been acting up. How odd…

 

Looking back to the small ringlet of blood he’d formed, he decided against any further blood manipulation. It was known to be dangerous, after all.

 

Even though it was interesting…

 

He reluctantly made a loose fist, easily crushing the small ringlet into small ice flakes before loosening it, letting it fall to the floor. He couldn’t help but feel a small pang of sadness. It had been such a long time since he’d manipulated blood.

 

He kind of missed that feeling…

 

His hands unconsciously clasped themselves together at the half-recalled memories, and he had an idea. He looked down at them, both of them covered with intertwining magical inscriptions.

 

This…

 

This could work.

 

He positioned his hands, the right one over the left, and closed his eyes.

 

Then he felt within himself for water, or rather, blood. He could hear his heartbeat move slow and steady in his ears as he used his magic to search himself, taking stock of all of the blood in his body.

 

He soon found the blood in his hands, and he focused on those particular areas, focusing on how the blood in them flowed and pulsed. He relished the feeling of his elemental mana flowing through his veins for a little bit, feeling relieved.

 

Then he slowly channeled more mana into his right hand than his left. By the time there was around a ten percent difference in power within his hands, he cast a spell that he hadn’t cast for quite a while.

 

It was something he called a “puppet spell.” Whenever it was cast on something, it gave the caster complete control over the object. With certain elements, this could be used to control actual people.

 

Blood had water in it, did it not?

 

He opened his eyes to see that the spell had succeeded. The magical patterns on his right hand were a tad brighter than the ones on his left, and it was connected to it by a small series of magical strings.

 

He moved his right pinkie experimentally. His left pinkie mirrored the action, in spite of the fact that he couldn’t properly feel it.

 

He lifted up his right hand, and the left mirrored it. The spark of happiness that sparked within him would unnerve a lot of people if they had known it was taking place. He couldn’t help but take a little time to continue joking around like this, smiling at the effects his actions had.

 

He couldn't maintain it for long, but when he ended the spell, he felt more than satisfied.

 

He sighed, resting his head against the window once again.

 

All of that combined had exhausted him a little bit, basking in the moonlight once again. He’d replenish his mana soon enough, and gain a little extra to fully top off his reserves.

 

He would be practicing his magic a lot more often after this…

 

He was sure of it. He wasn’t letting the opportunity pass by once again.

 

Besides, he had to learn how to defend himself, didn’t he? He could experiment like this after he’d brushed up on his more essential skills...


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shuuichi runs into someone. The entire experience is mildly terrifying.

**CHAPTER TWENTY**

The two weeks after he'd decided to use his elemental powers more often were definitely… interesting. It might not have been the kindest description to use, but he honestly couldn't find another adjective that was appropriate to the situation.

 

His sparring with Misaki had resumed as normally as it could after that terrifying experience of a test. And almost immediately, the difference in how his mana reacted could be seen.

 

The first thing that gave him away was the fact that it was a little darker than it used to be, and that most of his attacks looked more fluid and water-like in addition to the typical, vaguely ethereal look they had.

 

The main problem was the triangular projectiles.

 

They… to put it bluntly, they betrayed his mother's heritage very easily. It was currently a toss-up between them appearing as they normally did, or as tiny, explosive balls of ice. It didn't happen very often, but when it did, it was a bit unsettling. When you expected to hear a simple mana explosion and instead hear something that sounds similar to glass shattering, it let nervousness peak quite easily.

 

Obviously, mana-created ice was more dangerous than normal ice, particularly with how sharp the shards from the miniature explosions were. And on top of that, the small burst of cold air they tended to release as a result was a bit shocking.

 

To put it bluntly, Shuuichi was glad that he had trouble hitting a moving target.

 

The first time she'd seen them, Misaki had cheered, happy that he was finally using his elemental powers. Sure, they could be shut down with magic, but those spells were so advanced that not many people could cast them. And even with the hand life had been giving him, he was sure that it would still be very unlikely for him to have to confront somebody with that level of power. So, in most cases, elemental powers were the best bet one had when it came to fighting.

 

However, even though it might be an improvement, he was finding it a little hard to control his elemental powers. They could flare up at random, like the aforementioned projectiles, and his mama levels were fluctuating a lot. He'd gone to infirmary a few times, and he'd been told that such things were normal as his body adjusted to having his elemental mana levels at such a high level after such a long time of them being almost non-existent.

 

Even though it might have been normal, it was still very, _very_ unsettling to experience.

 

And on top of that, his internal scheduling seemed to be going completely and utterly off-kilter. He was napping a lot more than he usually did, and his appetite had decreased slightly.

 

He understood this one without needing to be told, however.

 

A person could last a week without food, and three without water if they were completely stripped of their mana. However, if they weren’t stripped of their mana, they could technically survive indefinitely, provided that they were around either sunlight or moonlight, depending on what sort of celestial they were.

 

However, that didn’t mean smooth sailing for them.

 

Hunger and thirst were still present; they just wouldn’t die because their mana would be supporting the bare essentials the body would need to live.

 

And woe betides them if the person happened to be in an area with a lot of poisonous flora and fauna without any knowledge of what was safe and what wasn’t. Depending on just how strong the poisons were and if they were magical in nature, the person would either have a constant feeling of moderate to severe pain throughout their time of suffering, or have a terrible, long and drawn-out death as their internal mana pools tried to fight off the effects of the natural, poisonous mana of whatever they had ingested.

 

There was being between a rock and a hard place, and then there was _that_.

 

Thankfully, he wasn’t one to go on stupid adventures.

 

However, as his body adjusted to its natural security system finally getting up after years and taking its place, it would have to go through a few changes in order to accommodate it.

 

For starters, he would either have a permanently reduced appetite or a permanently increased one. It depended on how much nutrients his body judged were necessary to survive.

 

Something that could end up being more of a drastic change was that there was a chance that his heat cycles would be affected. His heats were generally very intense, so if they intensified further, there would be a problem. If they reduced in intensity, that would obviously be fine.

 

The problem was that for the last two months, it was like his heat cycles had gone completely out of whack. They’d practically vanished into thin air, as far as he could tell. He could feel a few fluctuations that signified that they were at least partially on course, but he hadn’t actually needed to take care of himself.

 

And that had only been when he’d started using his regular magic more often.

 

What could happen now, when he’d done the magical equivalent of opening a can of worms? He didn’t know, and he was not looking forward to it.

 

All of these changes coming now were… honestly an unwanted throwback. Everything had finally stabilized a few years ago and now everything was running circles around him, right after he’d thought that he had everything under control.

 

To put it lightly, it was annoying.

 

And in spite of his lack of appetite, he still found himself drifting over to the kitchen, hoping that the cooks had left some pastries out. He was a simple Omega; as soon as someone gave him pastries regularly, he would practically trust them for life.

 

(Even though in this case, he usually cast a poison-scrying spell over food before he ate it. It might have seemed a little overkill, seeing that there was a high probability that every individual ingredient had probably been thoroughly scoured for both physical and magical impurities.)

 

(However, being too careful hadn’t killed people yet, as far as his knowledge went. He was just keeping himself as safe as he could.)

 

(Curiosity killed the cat, after all. Even if satisfaction brought it back, it still lost a life in the process. This situation was too dear for him to be trying to put himself through such needless danger. He might have been a bit sheltered, but when it came to matters like this, he was not stupid.)

 

Getting closer to the kitchen, he could already smell them. His stomach growled, and he picked up the pace a little. It was unlikely that any of the nobles in his province were so “uncouth” as to come and get their food themselves, but he didn’t want anyone to get to his food first.

 

Nobody came between him and his food.

 

 **_Nobody_**.

 

With that (ominous) thought in mind, he quickly opened the door to the kitchen.

 

And almost instantly, all of his worries seemed to disappear at the heavenly sight of the pastries.

 

Most people would think that it was comical that he liked sweets so much, but he could care less about what they thought. Nourishment was more important that people’s unneeded opinions, after all!

 

Tasty, tasty treats that he couldn’t wait to eat…

 

…---...

 

As he walked back to his room, a plate filled with an admirable selection of pastries, Shuuichi couldn’t help but feel happy and just a teensy bit relieved. Food didn’t instantly make everything better, but it did help to lift his mood and let him take a break from worrying too much.

 

The only problem was that this wouldn’t be viewed as a healthy lunch, or possibly dinner. Sometimes he dropped like a rock after lunch and only woke up during the night, while other times he only took a short nap and woke up again.

 

The oddest part of it was that someone seemed to either be monitoring him or deliberately messing with him.

 

Sometimes he’d get woken up by the sound of something falling down or moving oddly, and then find that everything was intact. Other times, he’d be driven awake by some force he couldn’t identify. And other times, in the middle of his training, some form of noise would break his concentration completely. Luckily, clean-up after those incidents was relatively simple, and they didn’t usually occur when he was doing something particularly complicated for his skill level.

 

However, it was… annoying, to see the least. And odd. Weirdly timed, too. Almost as if he was being monitored.

 

He didn’t like that. The problem lay in the fact that he couldn’t completely fault the person. The thing was, what they were doing wasn’t directly harmful. In fact, it was a little beneficial.

 

He might not be the best spell caster ever, but he would admit that when it came to exploring his powers, he could get a little absorbed while doing so. To the point that he usually lost track of time after the first half-hour.

 

The interruptions seemed to be timed in order to make sure that he had around the same amount of time to practice his elemental skills each night and made sure that he slept for around the same amount of time each night. Getting interrupted while doing something was a surefire way to make him pack up, and with the way he’d been raised, that usually meant that he packed up and went to bed immediately.

 

Sending him to sleep like that was a good thing because even though he was getting more energy from the moon, he wasn’t strong enough to be able to go without sleeping and simply siphoning off that.

 

To say the least, now that he was regularly running down his elemental mana pool, it was remarkably smaller than it had been on the now-fateful day when he’d somehow managed to put out the fire. It had been sizeable because it had been a large pool of power, built up not by regular use and practice. Thanks to the way it had been gathered up, it had been burnt through rather quickly. It hadn’t been too long since he’d started flexing his powers a little, not to mention that he was still shaking off the effects of the massive amount of power he’d had to dump out so quickly.

 

Basically, it meant that he could actually drain himself dry if he tried hard enough. His elemental mana pool might be enough to sustain his practice, but he usually felt a little tired after training.

 

In spite of the folly of the decision, sleeping with the curtains open in order to catch some moonlight helped to replenish his mana and return its levels to a workable state. It wasn’t exactly a life-or-death situation since he had a lot of leeway when it came down to it. The problem was that he’d basically been raised in a way that made him predisposed to hoarding things.

 

Mana included. Thus, he usually aimed to have at least forty percent more mana than he thought he might need for the given day.

 

However, pursuing that while training usually meant that he’d end up getting heavily immersed in that, and forget to sleep. And, assuming that he didn’t go to sleep, or slept later than he should, in spite of his extra mana, he’d barely be clinging to consciousness throughout the day. The amount of mana he currently had was enough to sustain him, as in making sure he was conscious and didn’t drop dead because of a small gust of wind. The problem was that he would be completely and utterly exhausted and would end up dragging himself around while barely managing to act like a normal human being.

 

Power level technicalities were so _amazing_ , weren’t they?

 

They were a pain in the ass.

 

So, it was nice to have someone looking out for him like that. While he thanked whoever the person was for that, he had to wonder precisely who they were and why they were doing that. It was odd. Who would be observing him that closely? Certainly not anyone he’d met during his time at the palace.

 

Part of him had a sneaking suspicion that one of the two visitors for last week had something to do with it.

 

Or rather, the short one in particular.

 

(Not like he’d ever let anyone hear his - admittedly terrible - nickname for the guy. _Ever_.)

 

But still. Something about him activated an alarm bell in the back of Shuuichi’s mind. Even though he and the other person seemed to be hanging around Kaito most of the time, Shuuichi was sure that there was something other than a friendly visit behind their sudden, slightly coincidental, appearance.

 

The odd thing was that he couldn’t get any information about them.

 

The servants had become oddly tight-lipped, always glancing around furtively before scuttling off somewhere while looking like children who were trying to avoid letting their parents hear them repeating swear words that they’d heard from an older sibling. They would scuffle around like that for a few paces before disappearing into thin air, most probably utilizing some sort of heavily encrypted teleportation system within the castle.

 

Shuuichi had only been able to detect it once or twice, but the sheer amount of camouflage spells which had been around it practically smacked him in the head, making him feel dizzy and a little nauseous each and every time.

 

Just _thinking_ about it made him gag a little.

 

And thinking about how news seemed to be stifled all of a sudden was really causing a couple of questions to pop up in his mind. It could just be normal policy after particularly unsettling events, but the way they acted seemed far more practiced than just another normal safety procedure. There were no slip-ups, no half-spoken sentences said before cutting themselves off, no out-of-place laughter or gasps.

 

It was strange, to say the least.

 

Not like it was his concern, though. It was something to mull over right before falling asleep, vaguely wondering about it before falling asleep and half-forgetting the entire thing by the time he woke up.

 

And right now, all he wanted to do was get to his room and curl up in a chair while reading that mystery novel he’d become preoccupied with. He just had to get through this last hallway and get into his room, and finally, he would be able to enjoy himself!

 

Just a few more steps…

 

“And where are _you_ going in such a hurry?”

 

Shuuichi nearly screeched at the unfamiliar voice before stopping in his tracks and turning around as if he had been slapped.

 

There, in front of him, was the person he’d just stopped thinking about some time before.

 

He was shorter than him by quite a bit, but the wide, almost inhuman smile on his face made him feel as if he was staring at someone decades older than he was. Not only that, but the strange way the top half of stranger’s face seemed to be in perpetual shadow despite the sun of the late afternoon drove even more terror into Shuuichi’s very being.

 

In fact, felt he was frozen even as the familiar feeling of his heart trying to destroy the bony confines of his ribs and sweat beading on his forehead. He could feel terror crawling through his very bones, as well as an odd curiosity.

 

Just who was this person, and why did their mere aura make him feel as if he was going to die at any given moment?

 

An uncomfortable smile stretched over Shuuichi’s face as he began trying to think of how he could politely toss the tray at the stranger and run for his life and lock himself in his room as best as he could.

 

“Attempts to flee from me are futile. No one who has tried that has failed.”

 

Shuuichi legitimately felt as if he was about to piss his pants as he started shaking like a leaf that was being battered in harsh winds. He felt as if all the saliva in his mouth had dried up, and he gulped awkwardly even as his mind seemed to start wiping itself blank from terror.

 

The strangest thing of all was that he couldn’t see the person's eyes… that was unsettling, but some part of him didn’t want to see them at all.

 

Almost as if thinking about them had summoned them, the person’s eyes seemed to flicker into existence.

 

Two dark purple irises that looked both amused and half-mad stared back at him, sending fear down his spine so quickly that he felt as if he was jerked backward.

 

“What’s the matter? You can't handle the gaze of a god?” In any other circumstance, Shuuichi would have questioned the seemingly out-of-place hint of cheekiness in the person’s voice.

 

Now, however, it simply made him feel even more scared.

 

“Aren’t you going to answer?”

 

He felt as if he was physically incapable of opening his mouth.

 

“Aren’t you?”

 

He felt as if he was going to die.

 

“Hmm?”

 

The edges of his vision seemed to blur into white splotches, and he could swear that he was starting to see the first few flashes of his speed past. His hands were gripping his plate of pastries with a grip that should have logically broken it by now.

 

Magical reinforcement, he assumed.

 

He gulped.

 

He realized something odd: he couldn’t pick up the person’s scent. Either they were using a spell to block it or his nerves were really shot. Not like his sense ofsmell would help when he felt as if he would end up dead within the next thirty seconds.

 

The very air around him seemed to still as the scenes of his life flashing before his eyes seemed to get more distinct and begin overtaking his vision. If he was going to die, it wasn’t fair that he had to go like this… even though it would get him away from the needless chaos, he still had a stretch of life ahead of him that he would never get to experience.

 

His head started to feel as if it was gradually getting pumped full of air, more and more, until he swore his head was about to explode into a gory mess of blood, brain matter and skull fragments. His airways seemed to constrict until he could barely suck in a breath. His lungs felt as if they were shriveling up by the second.

 

Either this was an intimidation spell cast by a strong darkness elemental, or a necromancer expanding their natural aura to a ridiculous extent. Either way, he wondered just what sort of sense of humor this person had, as well as how long it would take for him to black out at this rate.

 

Before the sweet release of either death or unconsciousness could take him away, he was unceremoniously given back his ability to breathe.

 

“Wh-What the hell?!” the words dropped gracelessly from his mouth, and he couldn't help but grip the tray he was holding tighter.

 

“Aww, didn't your mother tell you that's bad language?” And with that, the terrifying the person had displayed seemed to vanish into thin air, as well as that oddly-convenient shadow placement over his eyes.

 

Their eyes were purple, but a darker shade than Kaito's. And Shuuichi could clearly see the amusement dancing in them, thanks to the near-overwhelming terror that had coated his entire being just seconds before.

 

Unsurprising. Most people took comfort in his displeasure. Ironic as it might sound, it wasn't surprising that someone he didn't even know would go through that avenue.

 

“So, what stood out to you?” Shuuichi asked, already feeling tired. “Was it the fact that I was walking alone? The fact that I was carrying something? Or are you trying to mess with me because you decided on leaving it up to random chance?” It definitely wasn't a good first impression of himself that he was making with these statements, but by this point, he didn't mind.

 

“Ooooh, cynicism! At least there's someone in your group who isn't a mess or sinking so deep into denial that it's admirable.” The sugar-sweet front wasn't going away, and Shuuichi could tell that whoever this was didn't care what opinion Shuuichi had of him.

  


Fantastic.

 

“You sure about that? I can think of two people in particular who fit that description.” Amano and Michiru weren't exactly people who he highly valued, but… they weren't stupid. They were annoying, and idiotic when it came down to some issues, but on this particular one, he was sure that they weren't going to fit into the other two groups.

 

Unfortunately.

 

“One of them ran off as they saw me and the other made an impromptu route change when they saw me. You're the only one who stayed to talk!”

 

“Is that good or bad?”

 

“Depends on your perspective.”

 

Something felt a little off about this person, but apart from the… whatever had happened mere seconds before, they seemed… alright?

 

He wasn't being chased or carried like a living sack, so he would assume this person was rational to some degree.

 

Thus, he'd get the obvious part out of the way.

 

“You're a necromancer.” it came out in a bland, flat tone.

 

“Oh. How'd you guess?”

 

“Very few people apart from necromancer can paralyze people with fear like that. And I don't think you're using your secondary talent.”

 

‘Think’ was the key word there.

 

They manifested in different ways. The most he knew was that he couldn't activate his own willingly, and it usually came in the form of something shining or getting covered with a shimmering light blue aura.

 

The times when it forced him to deliberately made him look for something were when it really got annoying. Being pulled around and getting seemingly random objects getting tinted with blue was irritating. It was particularly confusing when it was a person because he had no idea if they'd stolen whatever it was or had just seen it.

 

If there was a better reason for staying away from people to avoid getting dragged around when they complained that they had something missing, he didn't currently know it.

 

And as far as he knew, he showed no outward signs when it manifested.

 

The common signs usually had to do with glowing. Eyes, hands, entire auras lighting up out of nowhere… sometimes they could get pretty flashy. In some cases, people didn't show any outward signs at all.

 

And he was sure that he didn't manifest his power visibly. When parts of him glowed, he could feel it. The late-night practice had shown him that. He didn't feel anything when his secondary ability manifested, so it was safe to assume that it didn't show.

 

“Well, you don't always know if someone's using their ability or not.”

 

Semantics. Fantastic.

 

“That's why I said, “I don't _think_ ” as part of the sentence.”

 

“Ah, but how do I know you're not self-correcting yourself right now, hmm?”

 

“You _heard_ me, so unless you've undergone some sort of memory loss within the past few seconds--”

 

“Accusing someone you just met of memory loss? How rude!”

 

“You're making it sound like I passed a verdict on you. I didn't even get to finish my statement.”

 

“Have you ever heard the phrase, ‘if you can't say anything helpful, don't say anything at all,’ or something similar?”

 

“How does this even apply to this conversation?”

 

“It doesn't.”

 

“It-- wait, _what_?”

 

“Oh yeah, the being offended part was a lie. I was just testing you to see how well you respond under pressure! Might want to work on that.”

 

“Do I look like a living experiment to you?” Shuuichi felt as if he'd gone through one of the most exhaustingly long tongue twisters he'd ever had the experience of trying to pronounce.

 

“Hmm.”

 

Wait. Was that question being taken seriously?

 

Was this guy really going to walk around him in circles and actually tell him if he looked like an experiment or not?

 

…

 

…

 

Yes. They… were actually doing this. Shuuichi couldn't help but feel like a plucked chicken being scrutinized. He could feel the other person's glance so intensely that it was starting to get borderline uncomfortable.

 

All he did was stare at the tray of snacks in his hands, too unnerved to look at the person.

 

This was starting to seem like less of an incidental encounter and more like a planned-out incident.

 

Necromancers _were_ known for being a little shady, after all.

 

The entire incident seemed to last for hours when he knew it only lasted for something around half a minute.

 

“Well,” the person started, using that chipper tone that Shuuichi was gradually beginning to question, “you only look like an experiment from a few certain angles. You'll be fine. Most of the time, anyway.”

 

And then they walked off.

 

Shuuichi couldn't help but stare after them, trying to comprehend what, exactly, had just happened.

 

He was, obviously, failing miserably.

 

The brief pondering only led to questions. Said questions were some of the most rudimentary things anyone could think of.

 

Who was that person?

 

And why did Shuuichi suddenly feel as if he'd been looked through like a thin piece of glass?

 

He couldn't answer either of them, and at this rate, he was sorely tempted to not bother trying to answer them at all.

 

At this rate, it might be best if he just teleported to his room instead of walked there; he'd had enough human interaction for the day.

 

Besides, he didn't want his snacks to get cold than they probably already were. A warming spell would do. And he had a book to finish, anyway…


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shuuichi realizes something. Which leads him into realizing a few other things. Or rather, remembering them.
> 
> They don't let him sleep, so he wanders the castle instead.

**CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE**

Over the next couple of days, Shuuichi found himself becoming increasingly tormented.

 

Yes. _Tormented._

 

It might have been a slight exaggeration, but the things what had been occurring lately made him treasure the precious little time that he was able to spend in his room.

 

Misaki had gotten _quite_ a bit more intensive with the training, while he was getting a _tiny_ bit better at actually fighting back and not just attempting to stall for eternity or run away as fast as he possibly could. He was barely keeping up with the sheer amount of force she was using now. Maybe it was simply the elemental in her acting up, or her just trying to up the ante a bit so he wouldn't get complacent. Whichever one it was, Shuuichi could appreciate it, in theory.

 

Practically, it felt as if he was hanging onto his life by the skin of his teeth. Ideas and execution had very different results, that was for sure…

 

And… whatever the name of the short visitor was, Shuuichi was unsure if they were a normal human being or an eldritch god compressed into human form as some sort of cheap joke. He would either appear behind Shuuichi and scare him half to death or appear in front of Shuuichi and almost make him drop whatever he happened to be holding on to at the time.

 

And he seemed to alternate between having casual-but-confusing conversations and playing up the necromancer aspect up so much that Shuuichi had no idea whether to be annoyed or afraid for his life.

 

At the very least, it didn’t cut into his sleep-time or his training time, so he was completely content with it. Content didn’t fully equal happy, so yes, it was an accurate description for what it felt like.

 

It was rather calming to make some ice sculptures at night while training. Disposal either meant shattering them into snow or just eating them.

 

Yes, shattering into a small pile of snow. Snow was… little more than ice crystals, really, when it came down to it. He wasn’t too keen on using that specifically for fighting, especially when it wasn’t snowing, but it was pretty to look at. THough he tried to fully dissipate it before leaving. His room was already getting colder; leaving snow on the ground would just verge into being needlessly messy.

 

In the meantime, he felt like contenting himself with making yet another abstract, senseless ice sculpture. This one in particular looked… strange. It was a mess of spikes and loops, and it looked as if it could hurt someone if he threw it at them. He turned it around in his hands before breaking off a small piece of it and chewing on it.

 

That brought a miscellaneous fact to the forefront of his mind: ice created using magic could be lethal to other elemental types if ingested. Particularly fire elemental types. It was ridiculous really; as soon as you brought magic into the equation, things could get ridiculously dangerous.

 

The good thing was that most people weren’t strong enough to channel enough power to make things lethal. The so-called “chosen ones” who were almost exploding with power were, thankfully, very few. Not only that, but around half of them would be struggling with their powers on a regular basis just to keep them under control. That was if they were able to contain their powers in the first place.

 

With great power comes great responsibility, as well as a high risk that wasn’t fucking worth it, in his opinion. Not only would it be hard to control, but it was a surefire way to get a target put on your back. People would either resent them for their power and want to kill them or want to rope them into some high-class nonsense.

 

He had enough controversy in his life to be thankful that his power levels would be around average, if not a little below standard.

 

He was getting better, slowly but surely. Whether it was a good thing was something he wasn’t quite sure of. He looked outside, at the moon. It was, ironically enough, decreasing. Even as he got stronger.

 

Well, at the very least, he wouldn’t have to deal with being at quote-unquote full power yet. He would probably manage to exhaust himself whenever that happened or be supercharged for a while if he managed to restrain himself. Not only was he a lunar celestial, but his main element was water. Combine that with how the moon affected the tides, as well as the miscellaneous ties that ice seemed to have to the moon, and there was a bona fide disaster waiting to happen if things went incorrectly.

 

He really needed to get better track of these things.

 

He sighed, and broke off another piece of the little ice sculpture, popping it into his mouth and chewing it. Eating ice might actually be an odd habit. He really didn’t know. He just liked doing it on occasion.

 

The crunch was always worth it.

 

He looked outside again, feeling a little restless.  The moon hung in the sky, the stars were twinkling gently, and as far as he could see, there was minimal activity outside.

 

In fact… activity seemed to be strangely non-existent. Maybe it was because there might not have been as much nightlife over here, but things seemed strangely still. As if everyone has unanimously decided to hole up on some sort of unknown signal. To say the least, it was strange.

 

Not to mention the fact that his reflection was so prominent that he could almost swear that he was looking through a mirror with some sort of enchantment to imitate a serene background.

 

(He'd heard a while ago that mirrors like that had recently begun to get a little popular with people who were often considered as overly romantic and air-headed.)

 

(They were also used for the slightly more practical purpose of making sure a person's outfit would fit well at an event, provided that the venue they were going to specifically as programmed into it. Some of the biggest socialites were apparently obsessed with it.)

 

(The reason why they weren't more popular was that they were quite expensive. That, and most people didn't want to have to choose whether they would have to take money out of their “elaborate, trendy clothes” fund for something else, especially one that was going to to be little more than a passing fad.)

 

He blinked.

 

And then he stared at the window as if it had slapped him in the face.

 

He could have sworn that it was completely empty before, and now… he could see a few vague silhouettes, but the way they moved seemed to be off somehow.

 

Se soon realized why.  Despite the fact that he could see relatively well in the darkness, he was around fifty-three percent sure that most people in the Luminary kingdom were solar celestials.

 

So, why weren’t they carrying lights with them to be able to see where they were going?

 

The moon might have been present in the sky, but seeing how far down they were, it was unlikely that they would be able to see very well with a waning crescent moon. And, once again, at least half of them seemed to be walking in ways that didn’t look very natural. In fact, if he didn’t know any better, he’d say that they looked as if they were acting out some sort of script.

 

That was assuming they were real, and not some form of projection.

 

And he was sure he wouldn't be able to look away from it until he'd confirmed this half-made theory.

 

For the first challenge, he tried to open the window.

 

It didn’t open.

 

So, in a moment of what was a mix of stupidity and genius, he tossed the ice sculpture at it as best as he could from such a short distance.

 

The glass didn’t crack, but it warped, a strange shade of bluish purple radiating from the spot it had been hit. He couldn't see through it, but it was obvious that something beneath it was being covered up. Heavily.

 

The distortion only lasted only for a few seconds and vanished as if it had never been there. If he'd blinked as it happened, he wouldn't have believed what he'd just seen. Luckily, he hadn't.

 

And he'd figured it out.

 

The windows had been converted into what was more or less a one-way mirror with allowances for the sun and moon in order to make sure that everyone inside the castle wasn't unnecessarily weakened.

 

People inside the castle couldn't look out, and outsiders couldn't look in. Not only did it make mildly impractical for anyone planning an attack, but it also made sure that no potential spies could look in if they somehow managed to bypass both the guards and the castle’s external defenses

 

Practical, and unnerving.

 

This was, in and of itself, was probably part of the castle's defense mechanisms. And it had been put in motion so seamlessly that he was sure that if there was a time it hadn't been in place, he couldn't recall it.

 

Now wasn't  _this_ a _fantastic_ demonstration of his alertness.

 

There really was a valid reason that his parents had decided to keep him in the dark when it came to so many things. He could barely keep others in mind during times of peace as long as they avoided him most of the time. That in and of itself was a warning sign, and it had turned into a glaring weakness in this situation.

 

It had gotten to the point that he couldn’t keep in mind that they were in the midst of a conflict that could escalate into _something else entirely_ if they let their guard down… it wasn't a mystery that he hadn't been able to keep other things in mind.

 

It wasn't like encouraging him to not bother with anything helped either, but he felt as if the brunt of the blame was on him for some reason. Life was complicated, and sometimes people remembered some… unpleasant facts at slightly inconvenient times.

 

He sighed.

 

Now he felt restless _and_ irritated.

 

He wanted to walk around and stretch his legs a bit, but he didn’t feel like walking laps around the perimeter of the room. Contradictory, once again. There was the possibility of walking around a little outside his room, of course, but part of him didn’t want to go out.

 

Apart from that, the activity could be considered strange, especially since - naturally, since he still couldn’t find a way to undo it and probably wouldn’t manage to find out how to do so - his room wasn’t sealed. Anyone who was awake could hear it.

 

And he was sure that even if he couldn’t hear them, some guards had to be patrolling the castle. He didn’t know much, but he knew it was standard protocol for some time after an attack. Especially when such a high-level enemy was involved. Patrol rounds were increased, and security was tightened for a long while after such a threat.

 

Stealth spells were the best friend of any competent guardsmen. Invisibility spells were at a close second. Oh, sure, guards in flashy armor with their weapons brandished could scare people off, but surprise attacks were more effective. In this case, it could be the difference between life and death.

 

Or freedom and captivity.

 

He couldn’t help but shudder.

 

Junko Enoshima? The so-called Bitch of the North? The latest scourge born out of a bloodline of beings of destruction? The head of a court that was said to be in the darkest depths of decadence? Someone who had practically put the entire world into disarray>

 

That was the person that wanted to start a _harem_?

 

Shuuichi pitied the people who had already been drafted into it. Arranged marriages were quite unpleasant to think about on their own, but that? From the sounds of it, she was amassing one of the so-called “legendary” harems, which basically amounted to “one bitch to fuck senseless for each night of the year.”

 

And woe betides the world if she intended to produce heirs. He could barely bring himself to imagine what sort of hellspawn she would produce.

 

The urge to walk around, or preferably, run, reared its head up again. Thinking of the person who had single-handedly upended his life and was now coming for it, as well as the lives of many others, with hot pursuit would do that to a person.

 

Especially when he knew that he was intellectually and magically outclassed by said terrifying deviant who was pursuing at least twenty fucking people, including himself, that he actually knew of. Of all the goddamned stupid things…

 

Things could get better or worse if the harem was open to the members of her court as well. That had been known to happen on some rare historical occasions. If the consorts couldn’t get randomly gifted to others like objects, of course.

 

…

 

He had now fully ascertained that not only had imagined that scenario been a bad idea but that he really wanted to get out of his room.

 

 _So much for sleep_ , he thought as he started walking towards the door of his room, barely remembering to dissolve the remaining fragments of the ice sculpture back into mana. He opened the door as quietly as possible, stepped through it as quietly as possible, and walked down the hallway as quietly as possible.

 

All that while also trying to be as quick as he possibly could be, too.

 

It was probably a stupid thing to be wandering around at this time, but from the vague feeling that he was being watched, he knew that he would be at least somewhat safe. Assuming that hordes didn’t suddenly break the windows and start pouring in like locusts.

 

And of course, that couldn’t happen. Such a large force nearing the castle would probably trigger all sorts of lockdown spells, all of which would have activated by now.

 

And they wouldn't activate quietly. On the contrary, they would probably send the surrounding area into a state of panic which would quickly spiral into the entire kingdom getting scared half out of their wits. If they weren't slaughtered on sight by the Enoshima Empire’s infamous army, of course.

 

He quickly changed the subject. That was verging on too unpleasant to consider for longer than a few seconds at a time.

 

His thoughts instantly jumped to the guards. He might not be able to see or hear them, but he could still feel their presence, although it was faint. He suspected that people who had a better hold on their powers could sense them better than he could. He wondered how they were maintaining it.

 

Invisibility and stealth spells on their own were rather difficult to achieve because they drained a person's general mana pool rather quickly. Using one's elemental mana pool could make for a higher quality version of them, but there was a higher chance of aura leakage. Not to mention the ridiculousness of elemental strengths and weaknesses. Using elemental mana for spells that weren't firmly rooted in it usually led to _interesting_ results.

 

Most of which could lead to potential injury or death in the “right” situation.

 

So they were using a more sensible source of energy. It was probably runes etched into their armor. He wondered what they derived their energy from. They could get it from the magical energy within the castle itself. The stones it was made from weren't merely aesthetic; Agarithia and Heraxia stone were well-known for their protective properties. Not only that, but they could take in all sorts of defensive spells like cloth took in water.

 

He’d had to do a little research to find out that it was Heraxia stone that most of the castle contained. Apparently, over here, it was more common that Agarithia. Something about being more suitable for the general magical auras in this place… whatever the case, the castle was strong. It wouldn't be infiltrated any time soon… he hoped.

 

Whatever the case, both stones were good at holding magical energy that could be diverted to a number of tasks, including maintaining stealth and invisibility spells on armor. However, creating such runes and properly binding them to the magical energies of the stones was a complicated process which most people didn't seem to bother with nowadays.

 

Probably because the ties between the armor and the stones could get cut in there was enough external assault on the castle itself.

 

In cases like that, which was most likely what could happen if everything came to the worst, after some time, the magic in the stones would be diverted from assisting other entities and be focused tenfold on the castle itself. The tales moving castles and rogue furniture that flung itself this way and that to defend against intruders weren't just fairy tales. In real life, it would be less like that and more around spikes suddenly protruding from all directions to skewer the intruders, floors suddenly reforming right under the feet of outsiders to injure, trap or kill them, and straight up mana beams that could vaporize people in the right situations.

 

Castle defense was not taken lightly, and a number of similar spells could be permanently broken into the castle stone by skilled mages with immense power reserves. The ones that didn't either implode or get killed before they could learn to properly harness them, that is.

 

Whatever the case, it would be impractical to rely on the energy of the castle itself for the spells on the guard’s armor.

 

What would be more practical was binding them according to elemental alignments. The day guard would get armor that would derive its energy from the sun, and the night guard would get armor that would derive its energy from the moon. Not only would it be more practical, but even if they were attacked in a time where some of the guard’s armor wouldn't be getting energy directly, the energy that was already stored within them would be able to tide them over a little better, without any unexpected shutdowns.

 

A much better choice. And something that made him feel a little more reassured.

 

Not like that really mattered. Feeling better for a little while was better than feeling petrified by panic, even though terror could lead to more cautious actions. Fear could be a benefit in dangerous situations like this one.

 

He’d just have to make sure it didn’t spiral into full-blown terror. That would ricochet him right back into his room and lead to another fiasco with shaking up the entire castle.

 

Not something he needed to relive a second time. At all.

 

Familiar but still foreign hallways seemed to blend into one another as Shuuichi walked through them. The sensation of the guards around the castle was soothing, almost like the constant magical hum of the security systems back home.

 

(No guards over there; not only were they not ranked high enough to fully justify that, but his parents had quite the preoccupation with not having much “unnecessary” staff. That apparently included guards. Not like he had been one to complain, because there were so many security spells in the Agarithia that made up his home that it was almost ridiculous.)

 

(It was a constant, reassuring humming noise in the background that he'd barely taken note of. One of the reasons he didn't like attending parties was because he couldn't always feel that reassuring him of active security scanning taking place virtually every day without ceasing, and those that he could sense didn't really give off the same intensity.)

 

(Well, that was what happened when your entire damn lineage, currently excluding yourself, was involved in some high-class illegal nonsense.)

 

(It was only now that he realized that he could feel something almost identical right now. The energy in the stones seeming to hum with the intensity that they were exerting to keep its occupants safe. If was reassuring, in a way.)

 

It was stupid. Wandering down familiar, yet strange halls as if he actually belonged there with no qualms at all. At this rate, he'd cover the entire floor he was on right now.

 

A change of scenery wouldn't kill, would it?

 

Going up a set of stairs was something he could easily achieve, and it wasn’t like he was going to trespass on private property. Sure, he’d be exhausted later on, but for now, he had to work out the remainder of his nervous energy. Wandering around for a while would probably do the trick.

 

Besides, it wasn’t like he’d run into anyone.

 

Right?


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shuuichi finds Kaito. They have a discussion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which I hope my diligent studying of the wiki's character pages has paid off.

**CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO**

Shuuichi didn’t know how long he had been wandering around, but he was thankful that he’d been forced to memorize the layout of the castle beforehand. A place that looked familiar in daylight could easily turn into a labyrinth at night. However, if you knew the layout beforehand, you wouldn’t be getting lost anytime soon.

 

Currently, he was getting to the areas of the castle which would be far quieter than most of the places he stayed in during the day. It had to be quieter. You wouldn’t want the place where the most important decisions for the kingdom were getting decided to be a disaster area, now would you?

 

Kaito had been spending a lot of time here lately.

 

A _lot_ of time.

 

The one reason why Shuuichi looked at people askance when they said they wanted to become royalty was that they never seemed to know what it truly entailed. Diplomacy was already a dicey issue among the nobility, and with straight-up royalty, diplomacy was an even worse beast.

 

When it was actually  _acknowledged_ , anyway.

 

Tyrants were the ones who didn’t bother, and everyone knew how they had turned out. Assassinated or exiled. Not a good choice.

 

Incompetence wasn’t good either. The royal court could and had dragged kingdoms six feet under many times in history when the rulers at the time had been weak. It either resulted in intense hatred for the ruler who had stood by, or immense pity. There seemed to be no emotional spectrum; simply those two extremes.

 

Either way, good governing was hard. And unless the people who apparently hadn’t given up their childhood dreams realized that there would only be around three specific circumstances where they wouldn’t have to do anything regarding the art of ruling, they would be surprised.

 

It didn’t even take that much research to find out, good grief.

 

Speaking of royalty, he wondered if Kaito was still up. It  _had_ been a while since he’d last seen the Alpha, and seeing that he still wasn’t tired and wasn’t prepared to go back to his room yet, it wouldn’t hurt to check.

 

Would it?

 

He’d have to find out.

 

…---...

 

Kaito’s scent was especially present around the southern area of this part. The familiar smell of pine and lavender was alongside two scents that Shuuichi didn’t recognize. There was the light, airy scent of jasmine and sandalwood that he supposed could belong to a Beta… and a strong scent of, of all things, grape and sugar. That last scent definitely belonged to an Omega.

 

Shuuichi felt a bit perplexed.

 

He hadn’t smelled those two scents before, so he was going to assume that they belonged to the - surprisingly scarce - “visitors.” If their scents were around this part of the castle, they were probably not visitors and probably delegates for something.

 

How… unsurprising.

 

He tried to match the scents with the people, and he was overwhelmingly sure that the grapes and sugar scent belonged to the one who had decided to make a regular habit of scaring the living daylights out of him. He suspected that the reason he hadn’t been able to pick it up after all this time was thanks to some sort of scent-blocking spell.

 

Of course.

 

Really, he was starting to want names to go with the appearances. It was getting to be a headache to continue describing them without their names, especially now that he knew their scents. He’d find out in due time, he guessed.

 

As he walked further into the area, the other two scents faded slightly, and he could follow Kaito’s scent easier. He couldn’t help but lose track of his surroundings a little as he worked on finding out where Kaito was.

 

He hadn’t tracked down someone by scent for a while, and it was a little amusing to remember just how preoccupying it could get. He still knew the general area he was in, he just knew that he wouldn’t be able to recall everything precisely in a few minutes. Strange, but that was what happened.

 

The sense of smell was the strongest scent for a reason, after all. And it definitely made itself known.

 

He soon found himself in front of a sturdy wooden door. It was a rather simple-looking door. It was large and wooden with a few silver detailings that seemed to glow slightly in the minimal lighting.

 

It was nice.

 

He looked up, and the occupation crystal above it had vibrant amethyst energy swirling within it. That meant that Kaito was, indeed, still here. So all he had to do was open the door. An easy task, wasn’t it?

 

Wasn’t it?

 

...in theory.

 

He couldn’t help but hesitate a little. Was he  _really_ going to open the door and invite himself in like this? It wasn’t like Kaito wasn’t approachable or something similar, but he hoped that he wouldn’t be overstepping his boundaries with this.

 

It was a small worry that had come to his mind too late, really. He was already at the door, and he didn’t especially feel like going back to his room now. And so, possibly against most schools of logic, he tried the door handle.

 

It didn’t seem to be obstructed… so he pushed it open slightly. The creak of the door seemed to shoot straight into his soul. Before he could make himself chicken out, he opened the door further.

 

Kaito was sitting at his desk, looking up from a book that he had probably been in the middle of reading. Now he was looking up at Shuuichi with a mix of surprise and amusement in his eyes.

 

Shuuichi could feel his cheeks getting warm with embarrassment, so he decided to break the silence.

 

“Hi.” It was quiet, bland and almost fell flat on its face with the sheer lack of force behind it. In absolutely  _any_ other circumstance, he’d have just turned away and hit the ground running, looking for the nearest hiding place. For goodness’s sake, he’d basically hunted Kaito down, and this was all he could think of to say?

 

Such  _eloquence_...

 

“Hi to you too,” Kaito said, looking considerably less flustered than he was “So, what are you doing up at-” he checked the clock “-the fine hour of two-thirty in the morning?”

 

Of course, the damn  _prince_ would be able to find something to salvage out of that. Good grief.

 

“I… couldn’t sleep. Between the moonlight and… well, realizing something, I managed to keep myself awake.” This came out a little better. Still overly quiet, but… it was good enough. To try and lessen the tension, he stepped in, closing the door behind him. He didn’t fully close it but left it just a bit open.

 

Just in case.

 

“Realizing what?” Kaito seemed a little concerned.

 

“It… it’s. Ah. I don’t think it’s all that important. It just… unnerved me a lot. That’s all.” Thinking back on it, it was kind of silly that he’d been so rattled. The time for fear had long passed; getting scared now was just being stupid.

 

“If it wasn’t important, you’d be asleep by now,” Kaito said.

 

“Oh, really?” Shuuichi asked. “It’s not something groundbreaking that kept me up if that’s what you’re thinking.”

 

“If it wasn’t groundbreaking, it wouldn’t have kept you up.”

 

“You’re sure?” Shuuichi leaned against the door a bit, looking at the floor. “I have a history of getting worked up over things that wouldn’t usually bother anyone else.”

 

“Of course I’m sure, Shuuichi.” At that, Shuuichi looked up at Kaito. “Whether it’s inconsequential or not, if something bothers you, it’s not something trivial. And I’m guessing that it isn’t trivial.”

 

“How come?”

 

“You’re more composed than you think.”

 

Shuuichi huffed. “Oh, come on now. Stop that.”

 

Kaito smiled and shrugged. “I can’t help it.”

 

“Fine.”

 

The mood had lifted a little, but it dropped slightly just before Kaito opened his mouth to ask another question.

 

“Come on, Shuuichi. What’s wrong?”

 

Shuuichi sighed. There was no graceful way to put it, and as much as he hated to admit it, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to bat Kaito away for much longer.

 

“It’s nothing much… I just remembered that we’re in the midst of a situation that could escalate to war if not handled carefully.”

 

Kaito sighed. “Of all the things that could be inconsequential, that isn’t it.”

 

“This has been happening for the last what - two months? And it feels like I’m only realizing now. You know, after everything that’s happened, I actively recall it now. It… doesn’t make any sense.” Shuuichi closed his eyes for a few seconds. Saying it out loud was… it was something else.

 

“The mind doesn’t make sense a lot of the time,” Kaito agreed, “and in situations like this, things can get even more confusing.”

 

“I don’t like it.” A childish sentiment, but one that Shuuichi couldn't deny.

 

“Nobody does,” Kaito said. “It’s what makes someone witness a murder and initially have no reaction, then have repeated, vivid nightmares for the rest of their lives.”

 

Shuuichi shuddered. “That sounds horrible. Thankfully, it wasn’t anything like that which decided to smack me in the face.”

 

“What _did_ make you realize that, anyway?”

 

“Guess.” The answer was automatic, and as soon as it left his mouth, Shuuichi knew that he wasn’t going to give much of a fight.

 

“I’m not good at guessing games.”

 

“Aww, really?”

 

“Really. The one flaw in my otherwise flawless personality. It’s a pity, isn’t it?”

 

Shuuichi giggled. “It indeed is a large shame… you’re sure you can’t guess?”

 

“A thousand percent sure.”

 

“Promise you won’t laugh.”

 

“Why would I?”

 

“To put it lightly, not many people take me seriously on a regular basis,” Shuuichi said, finally looking for a chair to sit on. He soon found one and sat down in it. “Thoughtless of when I basically break into their offices at obscene times in the morning and make myself comfortable as if I actually belong there.”

 

Kaito scoffed. “Oh, very funny. It’s fine; in fact, it’s actually nice to have someone to talk to. Books are nice, but they can get boring after a while.”

“True.”

 

A comfortable silence settled between them.

 

Then Kaito broke it.

 

“I haven’t forgotten what we were talking about earlier, you know.”

 

Shuuichi shifted back in the chair, enjoying the softness of the cushions, and sighed. “Oh, alright… it was the windows. What I could see when I looked into them… or rather, what I couldn’t see.”

 

Kaito nodded. “That’s a bit unsurprising. If you stare at them for long enough, and the illusions come apart pretty easily. They weren’t made to be overly convincing, just ‘normal’ enough to avoid garnering attention.”

 

“It makes sense… that’s a lot of high-level casting that was used for them, though. Asking for a completely realistic illusion would be a bit ridiculous. Though it did seem to notice when I was looking at it.”

 

“I’m guessing that it was that attempted cover-up that made the illusion obvious.”

 

“Apart from the fact that it initially looked as if I was looking at a mirror with a pre-enchanted scenery, yes.”

 

Kaito chuckled. “Oh, you’ve heard of that trend?”

 

“Yes. I guarantee that it’ll die within the next half year, I’m sure of it. Of all the things people have thought to do with mirrors, this was one of the most stupid things they could have done. Funhouse mirrors don’t need any magical counterparts, thank you very much.”

 

“Such a strong opinion. Let’s hope none of its supporters hear you, or else they’re going to scramble around for arguments.”

 

“Bold of you to assume that they have arguments for supporting such a stupid thing,” Shuuichi said, crossing his arms loosely and rolling his eyes. “Back to what we were actually talking about, the windows are reinforced rather well.”

 

“Yes, they are-- wait,” Kaito said, looking at Shuuichi skeptically. “How would you know that, apart from the obvious way?”

 

Shuuichi simply smiled.

 

“You definitely didn’t hit the window; there’s no bruising on your hands. Did you throw something at it?”

 

“Just ruin my air of mystique like that, why don’t you?”

 

“Oh, come on Shuuichi. We both know that you’re smarter than that.”

 

“Now how do you know that?”

 

Kaito leaned forward, rested his head on his right hand and just looked at Shuuichi. His entire expression seemed to _scream_ “are you serious”?

 

Shuuichi couldn’t help the small yelp of laughter that escaped him. “Alright, alright… I threw something at it, I didn’t slap it or anything. Lord knows that Misaki pummels me enough during training; I’m not so masochistic as to make myself undergo physical punishment when I’m not training.”

 

Kaito sighed. “Thank goodness. Some people I know wouldn’t have that much self-preservation.”

 

“Oh, really?”

 

“Really.”

 

“You must have an interesting set of friends, then,” Shuuichi said.

 

“They can be very colorful, I will admit that.”

 

“How colorful?”

 

“So colorful that it looks pretty oversaturated when things really get chaotic.”

 

“Chaotic?”

 

“Yep.”

 

“Something tells me that I might not like them.”

 

“Not all of them are that bad, you know.”

 

“How many of them are good and how many of them are chaotic?”

 

“It’s an even fifty-fifty split.”

 

“That isn’t reassuring at all, you know.”

 

“Oh, I know it isn’t.”

 

“That’s even less reassuring!”

 

“That’s the point.”

 

They broke into laughter for a few seconds, and it took a while for them to fully recover. Sure, it was a ridiculous thing to find humor in, but it still managed to take out the lingering tension in the room.

 

“Speaking of friends,” Shuuichi said, “can I ask something about one of them? You know, one of the people who came over recently.”

 

“Sure.”

 

There was no graceful way for him to put this, and Shuuichi knew it. He had to say it. “...what’s the name of the short one?”

 

To his surprise, Kaito burst into laughter. Shuuichi  _knew_ that he hadn’t used the  _best_ description, but it was the most defining feature that he could remember the person by.

 

“Sh-Short one?! Of all the things to call him, you chose _that_?”

 

Shuuichi felt the unforgiving heat rise in his cheeks once again. “W-Well… I had to. I already associate purple hair and eyes with you most of the time, so I don’t really think of him in terms of those… and he’s masked his scent every time he decided to drop by! His height was the most defining feature I could think of!”

 

In the distance, Shuuichi swore he heard something fall.

 

It took a few more seconds for Kaito to recover.

 

“H-His name is Kokichi… and he - surprise, surprise - doesn’t like being called short.”

 

“In my defense, it was either that or ‘terrifying, possibly eldritch being.’”

 

“He’d prefer that better.”

 

“Who wouldn’t, really?”

 

“People who don’t want to be universally feared, of course.”

 

“Ah,” Shuuichi said, nodding. “So that indeed doesn’t include him.”

 

“You’ve met him?”

 

“If by ‘meet,’ you mean ‘gotten the living daylights scared out of me before getting confused more than I thought was possible,’ then yes, I have met him multiple times.”

 

“And you said he concealed his scent?”

 

“To increase the fear factor, I assume.”

 

“Yep, that’s classic Kokichi. It’s interesting that he approached you so quickly, though.”

 

“It’s interesting that a necromancer thought that I was interesting enough for them to continuously scare to death.”

 

“He has interesting tastes.”

 

“Uh huh?”

 

“They don’t usually align with most people’s first impression of him, you know.”

 

“First impressions? People are  _allowed_ to make first impressions of him? He  _doesn’t_ scare everyone to death the first time he meets them? Really?” Shuuichi was, obviously, skeptical.

 

“Yes,” Kaito said, snickering. “He sometimes lets people get first impressions of him.”

 

“Sometimes?” That wasn’t reassuring.

 

“Sometimes.” Neither was Kaito’s tone.

 

“ _Sometimes?_ ” Shuuichi said, looking at Kaito skeptically. This sounded a bit too secretive.

 

“ _Sometimes._ ” Kaito wasn’t about to take the bait this time.

 

“Please, define ‘sometimes’. It still feels threatening.”

 

“It depends on if he takes a liking to you or not.”

 

“What does he do when he takes a liking to someone?” Shuuichi felt a little nervous about the answer he would get.

 

Kaito just smiled in response.

 

Shuuichi didn't like that. Not one bit. “What is that supposed to mean?”

 

Kaito smiled wider.

 

“That isn’t helping your case.”

 

“You’re assuming it can be helped.”

 

Shuuichi’s eyes widened. “You don’t mean…”

 

“You’re part of the group now.”

 

Shuuichi felt as if a blanket had been unceremoniously dropped onto him.

 

A very heavy blanket.

 

One that was trying to smother him under its weight, and was currently succeeding.

 

He felt as if the sleep that had eluded him was making its grand re-entry to his body, and that he would indeed come to regret this.

 

“Do you think I can convince him to send me to my grave early?” It was his last resort by this point. Contrary to what most people might think, knowing that something scary would happen  _didn't_ make him feel better.

 

It just made him worry more.

 

“He’s a necromancer, remember? He’d revive you instantly, and probably bind your soul to his will.”

 

“I can’t even escape him after death?” Shuuichi closed his eyes and rubbed them, before slumping back in the chair and staring at the ceiling. “ Fantastic…”

 

Could things get any _better_ than this? Really. His luck for tonight seemed to have run out, and it wasn't as if it could get worse, was it?

 

He looked at Kaito. In response, the prince just shrugged and grinned.

 

Shuuichi knew that the expression was meant to signify sympathy. Both the facial expression and scent matched in that regard. And it did make him feel a but placated.

 

The problem was that Shuuichi couldn't help but feel that it could also be an expression that was meant to deliver a snarky, ‘I'm sorry for your loss’ message.

 

Perhaps it was the cynicism talking.

 

Or the gradually-encroaching exhaustion.

 

Whichever one it was, it was making him question why he'd thought it had been a good idea to pursue this particular line of questioning. He supposed that he wouldn't know until some time later, so for now, he had to face the consequences.

 

He shrugged, shook his head and sighed. There was no way to win. “I'm guessing there's no way out of it?”

 

“The experiences of the past nine years tell me that's the truth,” Kaito said.

 

“Nine years?” Shuuichi asked. “You've survived for nearly a decade under that?”

 

“You'll get used to it.”

 

“Get used to it? In case you haven't noticed, I don't take change all that well. The only time I can adjust without taking a four-month waiting period is when all other alternatives are sealed off. And even then, I still take a week or so to actually get to it. Unless I'm not given a week.”

 

“I can assure you, all alternatives are sealed off and you didn't even have a minute after he decided to keep tabs on you.”

 

“Oh, good grief.” Shuuichi covered his eyes with his hand and grimaced.

 

(One of the more theatrical things he'd picked up from society. After that, people would either say they had a headache coming or that they needed to take a nap. Both excuses let them get out of any sort of uncomfortable social situation, one hundred percent of the time.)

 

(The unfortunate part was that he definitely wouldn’t be getting any way out of this particular situation… but at the very least, he was getting in a little acting practice.)

 

“There, there. It’s going to be alright,” Kaito said. His tone was definitely amused.

 

Shuuichi parted his fingers and looked over at Kaito. Of course, he was smirking. And he couldn’t even find it in him to be angry.

 

Fantastic.

 

“I sincerely doubt it,” Shuuichi said, letting his hand fall to his lap.

 

“The way a situation plays out depends heavily on your outlook. The more negatively you look at it, the worse it might seem, and the more positively you look at it, the better it might turn out.”

 

“That sounds like a bad joke.”

 

“It works for me, you know.”

 

“I’m guessing around thirty percent of the time.”

 

“Your cynicism is showing.”

 

Shuuichi scoffed. “And what are you going to do about it?”

 

“Help you get past it.”

 

Shuuichi resisted the urge to laugh. “Oh, really? I thought you were a prince, not a lesson teacher based in the subject of positivity.”

 

“You’d be surprised at how often royalty needs to give pep-talks to keep morality high,” Kaito said, stretching. “Diplomacy, decision-making and positivity are what makes up the cornerstone of what royalty has to do.”

 

Shuuichi rolled his eyes before yawning again. Then he spoke. “I assume so. God knows what people are thinking when they want to become royalty when they’re not children anymore. I mean no offense to your position, your majesty, but your job sucks.”

 

He realized what he’d said a split second after he’d said it. His eyes widened and he sat up straight as if he’d been slapped.

 

Kaito, once again, laughed.

 

Shuuichi wanted to crawl under a large pile of blankets and stay there for the next month. He was only a little sleepy, not drunk off his ass, for goodness sake. Good grief… he was lucky that Kaito had such an easygoing personality. In any other situation with any other royal, he was sure he wouldn’t get such hospitable treatment.

 

Kaito soon recovered. “It doesn’t suck  _all_ the time, you know. Sometimes it sucks a lot, other times it doesn’t suck as much… it depends on what’s going on at the time.”

 

“And now?” Shuuichi asked. He probably already knew the answer, but he couldn’t help but ask.

 

“It’s… more manageable than I thought it would be.”

 

Shuuichi arched an eyebrow. “Really?”

 

“Yes.” Kaito sat up a bit before closing the book he had with him. “The Royal Conference might be getting on my case, but the paperwork has mostly trickled down, especially since they sent Kaede and Kokichi over.”

 

“They’re informants, hmm?” Shuuichi asked. “So that’s why they seem to be nonexistent most of the time.”

 

“A job is a job, and the Conference has a lot of rules.”

 

“The ‘Conference’?” Shuuichi asked, feeling skeptical. “You can just refer to it like that?”

 

Kaito nodded. “Yeah. You don’t?”

 

Shuuichi scoffed. “Please. If I ever tried that in public, people would think I’d gone crazy. Just my rank, not even factoring in my family history, would mark me as unfitting to say it without putting ‘Royal’ behind it.”

 

“Are you talking about the same people who regularly hold wild parties without caring who breaks what?”

 

“And fucking in public? Yes, they’re the same people.”

 

“...how?”

 

“Some things are set in stone and could result in a scandal if they occur, like what I just described. Those things are generally ignored in favor of everything and anything else because it’s much better to be impulsive than to think of those few rules over and over again.”

 

“It’s times like this that I wonder how that social network functions.”

 

“That’s how Stoneca works,” Shuuichi said, “you ignore the more finicky aspects of social customs and dive straight into the web of madness which is the common societal depravity..”

 

“Really? ‘Common societal depravity’?”

 

Shuuichi smirked. “Really. There are _limits_ in my province when it comes to such matters, after all. Unlike… some places.” The smirk dropped right after he finished. There was a difference between occasional lapses of judgment and outright madness that could ruin people.

 

“True.”

 

There was silence for a short time, and the atmosphere got a little uncomfortable.

 

Shuuichi coughed. “Mm… quick question. The ‘Kaede’ you told me about earlier… that wouldn’t happen to be Kaede Akamatsu, could it?”

 

“That’s her name,” Kaito said.

 

“Really?” Shuuichi was definitely surprised. “So she can conceal herself so easily? I’d heard rumors of her enthusiastic, friendly nature. It doesn’t seem probable, so I’m assuming those are strong rules guiding her behavior.”

 

“The rules can be strict depending in the situation,” Kaito said, “and in this particular one, things were very unpleasant. The rules were accordingly stringent.”

 

“Interesting. But what about the recent incidents of me getting half-scared to death? Was that part of the agreement?”

 

Kaito snickered before answering. “They’re not part of any agreement that I know of...”

 

“Agreement ‘that you know of’?”

 

“He could have made an agreement with himself to do that.”

 

“Oh my goodness, could he simply straight-up kill me instead? I don’t think I’ll be able to handle it.”

 

Kaito opened his mouth to say something.

 

“Kill me and _not_ revive me to bind my soul to his will, of course.”

 

“Remember that if he ever tries to confuse you. Specifying things can and will save your ego on multiple occasions.”

 

“That’s implying that your ego has been decimated before.”

 

“Well…”

 

“It’s a yes or no answer.”

 

“...yes.”

 

“Was that so hard to say?”

 

“Very funny.”

 

“Now you know how it feels.” It was childish, but Shuuichi felt a little happy about that. Finally, he had an upper hand on the situation.

 

Kaito just shook his head.

 

They both gradually relaxed, relishing the comfortable silence that settled between them. He stretched his legs a little before looking around the room. It was well-organized and seemed surprisingly uncluttered for a place that had definitely been seeing a lot of use lately.

 

Of course, it could simply be a front to disguise what had actually happened. Any evidence of important business like that couldn’t be left out in the open, after all. That was common sense.

 

He glanced at the clock. “What time did you say I got here again?”

 

“Two-thirty.”

 

“It’s three fifteen.”

 

Kaito turned to look at the clock. “Well then… it’s not like I haven’t used an energy spell to get me through the day before…”

 

“Says the one with mana reserves,” Shuuichi said, clasping his hands together. “Alas,” he lamented, looking up at the ceiling, “I have but a small mana reserve, so I must behave like the rest of the true mortals in this castle, and wake up late.”

 

“Alas,” Kaito said, “I’m sure Misaki will pull you out of your bed, blankets and all, and drag you to training.”

 

“Ah. Do you mean like what happened within the first few weeks of getting here? Except that it was done by your staff?”

 

“In my defense, I didn’t give them direct orders to do that. They decided that part on their own.”

 

“And you say that the customs that I’m used to are bizarre.”

 

“We value physical health here. That, and sleeping won’t really act much in the way of self-defense.”

 

“Unless I’m sleeping through a boring speech, that is. I’d save myself from boredom. Luckily enough for me, people aren’t giving any speeches at all.”

 

“In your corner of the world, that is.”

 

Shuuichi blinked. “The benefit of being a low-ranked noble is that I don’t have to deal with those very often.”

 

“I envy you a lot in that aspect.”

 

“I’m happy with it. You can’t have it.”

 

“You can’t even share?”

 

“No.”

 

“Huh. Killjoy.”

 

“Sucks to be you, then.”


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shuuichi and Misaki go out and train as usual. However, something very unusual happens in the process.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize greatly for my lame attempts at sound effects here. 
> 
> Fun fact: thanks to all the bold and italics I used, the Google Doc navigation bar for this story is currently very confused...

**CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE**

Understandably, Shuuichi woke up late the next day.

 

He and Kaito’s conversation had continued for a long while, and it had ended in the wee hours of the morning. When it had ended, he’d said goodbye to Kaito and made his way back to his room, before crashing onto his bed and falling asleep.

 

Waking up, he saw that it would be a miracle if Misaki wasn’t ready to roast him alive because of how late he’d gotten up. Training would take longer than usual, and lunch would be delayed by quite a bit… he could probably make sure he had lunch a little earlier if he skipped breakfast, but would that really be a good idea after staying up late?

 

In fact, did he really need to train at all today? He felt like staying in bed.

 

Decisions, decisions…

 

He flopped around in bed for a little while before finally coming to an acceptable compromise. Which was… not too impressive, really.

 

It basically meant hoping that Misaki was in a forgiving mood and seeing if she was going to push him to train or not. If she… did, he was sure he was probably going to regret the fact that he'd been born. And she was unlikely to not want to train.

 

Despite her friendly exterior, she wasn't willing to spare anything when it came to tardiness. Probably because it had some importance when it came to the family business; you had to keep to strict schedules when it came to trade, after all. It was the only thing that she'd ever gotten really wound up about. Not that he was complaining, really, but in situations like this, he probably wouldn't be getting much mercy.

 

He sighed. He might as well get it out of the way sooner; breakfast wasn't really important. Ad if he didn't eat breakfast, he could probably eat a bigger lunch. Unless he was pummeled within an inch of his life, in which case he could sleep longer.

 

It was a backhanded win-win situation. He'd survive, wouldn't he?

 

He had to, really.

 

And that final though finally propelled him to get out of bed and make his way to the bathroom. He might as well freshen up before getting thrown around so much that his life would start flashing before his eyes.

 

(Misaki was a good person, no one could deny that. Shuuichi really could have a better time if he'd met her in a situation that didn't involve training being a necessity because fighting her was an experience he was sure he could have happily gone his entire life _not_ knowing.)

 

(Their fights were more like an underfed rat trying to stand its ground with a merciful cat that didn't want to kill it. Not the most optimistic comparison, but that was what it could feel like sometimes.)

 

(And with what they'd been doing for the past few days, she might not actually be mad at him and what they were doing would still make him feel as if he wanted to find a shortcut to his grave.)

 

Well, he couldn't stall forever, now could he?

…---...

 

Shuuichi could feel his heart racing in his chest as he quickly pulled up a shield. He screwed his eyes shut and dug his feet into the ground so the impact of the oncoming fireballs wouldn't knock him off-balance.

 

While Misaki hadn't precisely seemed angry, the fact that she'd chose this particular method of training today was really beginning to say otherwise.

 

_THOOM. THOOM. THOOM._

 

Shuuichi hissed as the fireballs started coming at his shield mercilessly. Even though his elemental mana-charged shield, he could feel the heat on his forearms.

 

_THOOM. THOOM. THOOM._

 

He gritted his teeth a little harder. Of all the shields he'd decided to make, it had been a cross-position one. It involved holding your forearms in the aforementioned shape and letting the shield spawn over it. It was better-suited for making shields that needed to last for a longer time than most, but he was worrying that his shield wouldn't be able to hold up for much longer.

 

_THOOM, THOOM, THOOM!_

 

A shield integrity test, she'd said. It was basically a strength test to see how much his shields would be able to take before they gave out.

 

_THOOM, THOOM, THOOM!_

 

Whatever the case, Shuuichi wasn't liking this. Not one bit.

 

_THOOM!_

 

…and then nothing.

 

Finally, something that could faintly resemble a break. He let his mana flow fluctuate a bit, not fully dropping the shield but not fully charging it either. He would have opened his eyes if not for the fact that he didn't want to see what would be coming at him.

 

Sure, that would be impractical in an actual combat situation, but he was taking the few liberties he could get.

 

Even for Misaki, this did seem just a little bit overkill… he wondered why.

 

Then heard the crackling of fire once again. His intestines seemed to knot up with a mix of fear and irritation in response. Over the last few rounds, the fireballs had started getting more unpleasant to deal with. He wasn't sure he'd get through the next couple of rounds…

 

**_THOOM. THOOM. THOOM._ **

 

There were _definitely_ more intense, and he poured some more mana into the shield. If things were really going to escalate this quickly--

 

**_THOOM. THOOM, THOOM._ **

 

\--they were coming at him even faster than before, for goodness--

 

**_THOOM, THOOM, THOOM!_ **

 

\--he started pouring even more mana into his shield in a desperate attempt to ward off the fireballs. Misaki, for goodness sakes--

 

**_THOOM, THOOM, THOOM! THOOM, THOOM, THOOM!_ **

 

Shuuichi was half-sure that if his eyes were open, he'd be seeing his life flash before his eyes. There was testing, and then there was--

 

**_THOOM, THOOM, THOOM! THOOM, THOOM, THOOM! THOOM, THOOM, THOOM!_ **

 

If anyone needed the definition of overkill, he was sure what he was experiencing was close to it. He was pouring so much mana into his shield by this point that his forearms felt as if they were getting colder instead of warmer.

 

And a short respite from the madness.

 

Then he heard the fire crackling _again_. Only this time, it sounded a lot louder than it should have been.

 

“Heads up!” Misaki yelled.

 

_FWOOSH!_

 

And then he felt it.

 

A fucking _pillar of fire,_ ramming against his shield with such force that he felt that he was getting pushed backward.

 

He was dead. Forget Kokichi, he was getting sent straight to his grave from this.

 

Shuuichi _screamed_ , pouring as much mana into his shield as possible while desperately trying to keep himself upright. It was a battle that he was almost completely sure that he was going to lose, but one he couldn't give up on because, good fucking grief, he did not want to feel the full force of those flames.

 

Maybe it as just the natural repulsion of their elements that was making him act up, but he felt at least sixty percent sure that he would probably regret all of his life choices if he ever happened to get hit by this particular set of flames. The more mana was poured into an attack, the more drastic the effects could be if it hit someone with an opposing element. And the potential injuries could increase in severity depending on just how much contact the attacked had with the attack itself.

 

He did not want to get any closer and more personal with this particular set of attacks than he needed to.

 

He grimaced; the heat from the fire attack seemed to be migrating straight through his shield, and he wasn't liking it, not one bit. He felt a little queasy, and even though it wasn't exactly at a burning temperature, he seemed to instinctively know that if it got any hotter that consequences would start rolling in without warning.

 

This, he decided to change his shield from water-mana based, to ice.

 

He swore that his nails were cutting into the flesh of his palms with how hard he clenched his fists as he started both getting ready to pour some more mana into the shield as well as starting to toy with its structural integrity. He started from the center, focusing on lowering its temperature as much as possible before finally starting to change it to ice. If he introduced the ice mana too abruptly, the shield would be unstable and likely to crack open quickly.

 

Obviously, he didn't want that.

 

As soon as he'd lowered it as much as he could in this particular set of circumstances, he let the ice mana slowly leak into the shield.

 

The effect was immediate.

 

If he thought his forearms had been cold before, he now knew that he wasn’t going to be able to feel anything he touched for a while. The cold seemed to go right through them immediately, and he was sure that they would be glowing brightly if he could actually look at them.

 

He could hear the crackling of ice spiraling outwards from the center of his shield, moving to cover the entire structure at a slightly uneven pace. He couldn't exactly monitor precisely how much mana was distributed to what area of the shield right now; his greatest concerns were making sure that it wasn't going to shatter on him and keeping the heat away.

 

Judging by the fact that his forearms were currently as good as dead, he was assuming that he had succeeded, at least for now.

 

He felt the flames press harder on his shield, and in response, he pushed back, using a little bit of his general mana pool to try and push the shield forward a bit. His elemental mana pool would definitely be… _something_ by the end of this battle, so for now, any further action he would take would have to drain his general mana pool, however useless it might be in this fight.

 

He pooled a bit of it around his arms, torso, and legs to make sure they didn't give out from all the strain, and waited.

 

Misaki was strong, and it would take a good while to tire her out when she decided to do something like this. The one thing he was hoping for was that she didn't push up the intensity because he didn't know what would happen if she tried _that_.

 

…

 

He was earnestly hoping that he hadn't jinxed himself. That probably meant that he _had_ jinxed himself, and was only digging himself deeper into the bad luck that he'd managed to accrue.

 

Superb, wasn't it? At this rate, there was absolutely nothing else that could go wrong.

 

Then he heard Misaki scream. And with that scream, he heard the jet of flame lunge toward him again, seemingly with renewed vigor.

 

**_FWOOSH!_ **

 

His eyes shot open as he felt the stream of fire not only intensify, but it pushed on his shield with at least three times the amount of force it had previously. It pushed back at him, and he was barely maintaining his balance. It was a miracle his shield hadn't shattered already. At this rate, it _would_.

 

For a split second, he wondered if he would truly meet his end like this, roasted to death by a deluge of flames.

 

Then he snapped himself out of it. That was needless doomsday thinking. Misaki definitely wouldn't kill him; they knew each other too well for that to really be a viable option for her to take… she'd be a primary suspect, anyway, with the so-called method of death, so it wasn't sensible. The real problem was that she didn't seem to be too eager on being all that merciful today.

 

He wouldn't _die_ … he'd just have to spend some time in the infirmary.

 

A bigger problem was that he didn't really have much of an effective arsenal to work with at this point in time. His elemental mana was getting dangerously close to critical levels, so he couldn't retaliate using that unless he earnestly wanted to land himself at least a month in intensive care in the infirmary. All he had was his general mana pool, and even though it would be quite versatile in most situations, he wasn't sure that he'd be able to do much with it in this particular situation.

 

If this situation had happened in any other way, he would know that he'd bitten off more than he could chew. The problem was that Misaki had initiated it, and he was getting too close to his limits for his liking. Was this deliberate? If so, he'd really like to talk with her after all of this was finished…

 

_Crack!_

 

Shuuichi looked at his shield. It had been a small sound which would have been unnoticeable in almost any other moment.

 

It was starting to crack.

 

He looked over the surface of the shield desperately, trying to pinpoint where the noise had come from. This couldn't be happening, please no, please… if his shield was cracking, there was a high chance that he was screwed over.

 

And in this situation, that could be _extremely_ dangerous.

 

He couldn't see any point where it was cracking. And that escalated everything to an even more dangerous level.

 

If he couldn't see the cracks yet, it could be absolutely devastating when they got large enough for him to see. In fact, by that point, he could be done for. It was something he wasn't willing to risk _at all_.

 

At the very least, the fact that the cracks were still minuscule and weren't, say, arcing right across the shield meant that he could try and salvage this.

 

He could faintly see the flames through the ice shield, and it only took a few seconds for him to decide on what to do.

 

He only hoped that it would work.

 

He pushed forward as much as he could and quickly started pouring as much general mana into the shield as he could. That would serve around three purposes, but the first thing is wanted to do was try to detect precisely where the breaks were forming.

 

If he knew where the cracks were, he could judge if letting them expand would be instantly lethal or if he would be able to spare a few seconds to compose himself layer on in the plan.

 

None of the cracks were directly in the center, which ruled out the chance of instant defeat or injury. They were scattered around the upper half of the shield, and most of them looked as if instead of spreading and causing instability that way they would shatter out into small splinters.

 

That meant that they would cause holes that the fire could get purchase on and use to gradually melt the entire fucking shield. And that in its own would cause a plethora of problems that he currently didn't want to consider.

 

He shuddered as he redoubled his efforts to get his general mana to spread throughout the shield. He couldn't afford to leave any part of the shield untouched. Neuroticism could be the difference between life and death in this situation, and by this point, he could care less.

 

As soon as he could feel that the entire shield was infused with general mana, he plunged right into the next phase of his hastily-created plan.

 

Reinforcing the shield alone would ordinarily be enough. It would simply entail him encouraging the ice mana in the shield to redouble itself and fill in the holes, before increasing the thickness of the shield. However, with the barrage of fire coming toward him, he wasn't ready to risk pouring all of his energy into doing just that. What he was planning to do was risky, but would come in handy if Misaki decided to, yet again, increase the intensity of the flames.

 

Shuuichi squeezed his eyes shut, hoping this would work.

 

First, he reinforced the shield as best as he could and sealed the minuscule cracks. Then he gradually started to expand his shield. His general mana coaxed his elemental mana to expand, the convex structure steadily getting larger. Not only did it get larger, but he spared a little more mana to make sure that the ice crystals didn't lose their coldness. The shield had to get thinned out a little bit as it expanded, and he wasn't ready to feel the full brunt of the flames. It shouldn't thin out too severely, but there were chances he was willing to take, and chances he wasn't willing to take.

 

This particular chance was one that he _did not_ want to take.  

 

Thus, he went for what would be popularly considered an extreme option.

 

Normally, shield expansion like this was slow, delicate work that would take some time to do. It would almost never be attempted without being in a group that could hold off the attacks long enough for the shield to expand properly, and the outlier situations were evenly split between overpowered mages, people who would find themselves defeated so badly that they were barely hanging onto life, and people who just managed to get lucky.

 

(Usually by the skin of their chattering teeth.)

 

He was desperately hoping that he'd be part of the third group since one of the options was clearly beyond his grasp and the other option was something he didn't want to bother considering.

 

However, things were stacked against him pretty badly. Not only was his shield a rather hasty, amateur one, but he was in the midst of what he felt to be more or less a life-or-death situation, and his decisions probably weren't as rational as they could be. What he was doing was much faster and far less precise and premeditated than it would regularly be.

 

That meant that there was a large margin for error, no matter what he did. The only thing that could be counted as reliable was the knowledge he was using. And, naturally, it was far from accurate.

 

In any case, he had to at least brave his way through this.

 

It was normal for shields to become protective domes as soon as they reached a certain size. They would rapidly expand to surround the caster, as well as any potential tag-along, and would usually strengthen itself as much as the casters mana would allow. Done well, a shield could become a nigh-impenetrable miniature fortress.

 

There were a lot of different methods to do that, but he couldn't remember the specifics. Not like they would help much in this sort of situation, anyway…

 

Shuuichi could almost feel it in his bones when his shield finally reached the size where it would be able to expand. However, he wasn't going to count on instinct alone to save him. Instead of going through the traditional movements, he did the exact opposite, forcefully driving part of the shield into the ground and making it expand from there.

 

Obviously, that action both confused and irritated his instincts greatly. He felt a sharp cold snap out from his long-dead forearms and race up his arms, crawling past his elbows and shoulders with almost deadly, snake-like ease. Before he could fully process that, the cold seemed to snap over and crush his chest and neck in that almost unbearable vice-grip of the now painfully familiar freezing-cold sensation.

 

 _Almost_.

 

It was better than scorching heat. This was… a part of him. For better or for worse, this was something he'd have to get used to. And once he got over himself and was able to try and ignore the stinging sensation, he was able to continue executing his plan.

 

All he had to do was feel a little more mana into this entire convoluted Ness of a shield, and wait. Nothing more, nothing less. Just some basic power injection and waiting. Easy.

 

It didn't take long for the results to start showing.

 

Consequently, it didn't take long for him to realize that something was _off_.

 

As the shield expanded into the dome shape, something seemed to impact it. Maybe it was because he jammed part of it into the ground, but it wasn't stopping at just forming a protective dome over him. Its effects weren't stopping aboveground.

 

Instead, part of it seemed to drive itself into the ground farther and with more force than he'd even bothered using to stabilize the shield. It didn't even maintain the spherical shape; it was a dome aboveground, and a straight-up _circle_ of magical energy that was cutting furiously through the soil, shooting downward uncontrollably.

 

It was wishing down so quickly that it was making Shuuichi worried.

 

And it didn't take him long to figure out why.

 

He wasn't doing this.

 

He had somehow completely lost control over part of this shield.

 

Whatever was going on underground as, literally beyond him. Something else was compelling his magic to drive itself into the earth like that, because, for the life of him, he had neither anticipated that nor had he done anything that would provoke it to do that.

 

The most he could tell was that it seemed to be searching for something.

 

It was like it was reaching for something that he couldn't detect, racing toward it as if it wouldn't be able to survive without it. Almost as if mana could be desperate. Strange.

 

He slowly felt the sensation of ice start to creep into his legs, seemingly anchoring them at the spot he was standing. He lost feeling in his legs faster than he'd lost feeling in everything else, and he could feel the telltale signs of the sensation trying to crawl over his head.

 

Alright.

 

Something was wrong.

 

Something was wrong, _wrong_ , **_wrong_** , **_very fucking wrong_ ** …

 

“Shuuichi! What's happening?!” Misaki yelled, sounding worried.

 

“I don't… I don't know!” Shuuichi barely managed to pry his eyes open, and when he looked around, he knew that whatever had gone wrong, it was even more serious than he had anticipated.

 

His mana was glowing a dark blue, darker than he had ever recalled it being before. The ground directly underneath him seemed to be shifting, glowing with a raw, unsteady light. The way it shifted would have made him feel queasy in any other circumstance, but all he could currently feel was a growing fear for the sheer amount of power that seemed to be bubbling beneath the ground.

 

He could barely feel his stomach, but he swore that he faintly felt it sink. If there was that much raw power beneath the surface, and his magic was flowing toward some energy source that he couldn't detect…

 

The raw power was what his magic was searching for, and putting two and two together provided him with a very, very terrifying four.

 

A leyline. He'd hit a magical leyline.

 

He'd hit a magical leyline and both his elemental mana and his general mana were overloading on the sheer amount of power that it was carrying.

 

He looked up for a split second, looking through his shield as best as he could. He could see Misaki faintly, and she looked as if she was being held in place by… either fire essence or molten lava.

 

He had no idea whether he had accidentally fed the excess power through her if she'd transferred it to him, it if they'd both stumbled on the same leyline and were currently getting caught in a terrifying crossfire.

 

He heard Misaki scream, and her flames seemed to burn even hotter than they had before against his shield.

 

The problem was that it hadn't been a scream of anger. It had been a scream of pure, unadulterated _terror._

 

Shuuichi could feel his heart beat faster than it should ever have when he felt his magic finally stop digging downwards. As soon as he felt the first wave of the immense magical surge start to work its way up, the channel his magic had created, he _screamed._

 

And then his vision went white.


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aftermath of the incident, part one, technically. With a bonus minor plot point close to the end.

**CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR**

Kaito looked over the report again, bemusedly absorbing the information it contained. Then he looked up at the nervous guard who had given it to him.

 

He was sure that the bland expression on his face was far from reassuring, and was probably making the guard feel even more uncomfortable.

 

He really couldn't blame him. Anyone who had to deliver news like this wouldn't be all that excited about what it entailed. It wasn't some sort of unforgivable oversight, but it also wasn't something completely inconsequential. Events that managed to fall within this spectrum tended to cause more awkwardness than things that could outright cost someone their rank or their occupation.

 

If he wasn't wearing the bland expression he had right now, he'd probably have smacked himself on the forehead by this point. And probably let out a string of swear words to accompany that action. The problem was that those were actions that were not only unprofessional but had a fifty-fifty chance of either making the guard even more unsettled or giving the castle staff something to gossip about, apart from this particular failure.

 

The word “failure” was used less in regard to everyone else and more in regard to himself in this case. Of all the things that he could have overlooked, it was _the leyline_.

 

Not just _any_ leyline.  

 

 _ **The** leyline_.

 

The report had helpfully stated the precise location of the incident. Knowing the location alone made it almost unnecessary to read the rest of the report; _that_ was how infamous that particular leyline was.  He'd only had to skim the rest of the report, and it had, unfortunately, lived up to his expectations. At the very least, it hadn't been as severe as it could have been. On a scale of the disasters that the leyline had caused this particular one was, thankfully, around the lower, less catastrophic area of the spectrum.

 

Knowing the precise location of where the incident had occurred was something that caused more resignation than surprise, really.

 

One would have thought that Enoshima Empire spies managing to slip through security systems that he'd thought could keep them out would have taught him a lesson about being foolhardy.

 

Apparently, it hadn't.

 

That particular leyline was, to put it bluntly, _very_ well-known for being a disaster zone. At any initial magical inspection, it held little power in it and wasn't noteworthy in any way. It _always_ seemed to be nothing more than one of the standard weak leyline that was part of the natural mana system in the area. It was easily overlooked. Even when someone was deliberately scrying for leylines, it would take them some time to find it, unless, for some odd reason, they were looking for the weakest ones first.

 

The problem was that, while it was usually inconsequential, it was a trouble magnet. And it only chose to display those abilities at some of the most inconvenient times ever.

 

It was a running joke that people tended to fight around that leyline. Whether it was verbally or physically, that place just seemed to gravitate combat towards it. And woe betides the fools who decided to bring magic into their little spat.

 

Depending on how much mana they decided to put into attempting to wound the other person, the leyline would react out of nowhere. What it did next was something they'd taken to referring to as an “unwanted strength enhancement.” As the name implied, the two or more combatants strength to pummel each other. The problem with that was that it brute-forced its way into their natural mana systems most of the time, and if it didn't, and decided to take a more subtle invasion route, the results weren't favorable.

 

Oddly enough, actual physical injuries from the unwanted power implantation were rare. What was common, however, was some amount of hormone and mana level fluctuation.

 

When he'd fought Soichiro on that spot when they were younger, to say that it was a disaster was being generous. His mana level had dropped to nearly nothing, and his emotions had been all over the place for at least a month. And when his mana levels finally decided to rise, they did so _explosively._ He'd gone from being able to manage his attacks to dealing with a mana pool that was at least three times whatever someone his age should have needed to deal with. When everything had stabilized, he'd ended up with a slightly larger than normal mana pool. It had taken a bit more time for his emotions to stabilize, though. Two months, to be precise.

 

In comparison, Soichiro had gotten lucky. He'd straight up gotten knocked out for three and a half weeks immediately after the incident. And after that, he'd seemingly bounced back to normal without any effort.

 

Three and a half weeks of what seemed like nothing compared to three and a half months of that seemed to be an unfair difference.

 

Not that he could do anything about it.

 

The real problem was that even though the incidents with that leyline were rare, the effects weren't always as merciful as those. There were stories of people completely losing their ability to manipulate mana completely. And the few people who had gotten serious physical injuries from it… hadn't really fared well.

 

And of course, he was probably going to need to explain this little piece of trivia to everyone, _before_ rumors about part of the castle grounds started to circulate.

 

Sometimes it seemed to be too much to hope for times of peace. Right after some semblance of normalcy had been established, the world seemed to want to put a new conflict to disrupt the calm. And of all the ones it could have picked, it had to be the one that had such unfortunate implications attached to it.

 

Well, it wasn't going to do anyone any good to sulk over this, was it?

 

“Have the leyline’s mana levels gotten back to normal?” Kaito asked.

 

“It seems so, your highness.”

 

“And are Shuuichi and Misaki receiving treatment?”

 

“Yes, your highness.” In spite of the benign news he brought, the guard still seemed to be a little skittish. It would be best to let him leave soon and not prolong things any further than they needed to be.

 

“You're dismissed.”

 

The guard bowed and quickly left the room, clearly relieved. It wasn't like anyone could blame him, really?

 

Who would want to deliver news which basically amounted to “the one cursed area in the castle has started living up to its rumors again, and two of the people we were supposed to be protecting have been caught in the crossfire”? It wasn't a nice job, but someone had to do it. He'd done it well, too.

 

He looked over the report again before he stood up. The royal healers we had probably done a good job, but he knew that he had to check up on Shuuichi and Misaki. Shuuichi in particular, since the effects could be a little worse when it came to him.

 

He shouldn't be so worried, but… he couldn't help it. At the very least, physical injuries weren't going to be much of a factor. But both of them had probably been knocked out cold, and their mana levels could definitely be dangerously different from what they normally were. Depending on just how intense the fight had been, the effects could be permanent…

 

And right on the other side of the spectrum, they could end up being just fine. Thinking of the worst possible scenarios wouldn't help anyone, and it could end up being completely unneeded. Optimism could be seen as folly at times, but it was better than working yourself up over something that could turn out to be nothing of concern.

 

Despite knowing that, Kaito couldn't help the worry that churned slightly in his stomach.

 

Emotions could conquer logic at times, and this was probably one of them.

 

…---...

 

They were going to be fine.

 

No mana fluctuations that could leave lasting side-effects, and seemingly no hormonal imbalances were present. The few injuries they'd gotten were minor and had been easily taken care of.

 

Shuuichi had had a few cuts on his hands and, a bit ironically, some minor frostbite. The cuts were on his palms and had probably been caused by him clenching his fists tightly enough to break through the skin.

 

The fact that he had power over ice wasn't much of a surprise; his mother was mildly infamous for her ice powers, and simply her having them had left Shuuichi with a fifty-fifty chance of inheriting them. What it meant was that unlike most water elementals, creating ice and utilizing it wouldn't take as much mana as it would otherwise.

 

Ice elementals, ones who were pure ice, could be terrors. Almost any water that their powers touched would automatically turn to ice, and around half of them had gone on to specialize in using spears. Not many people had interest in being skewered and having their corpses proudly displayed as a deterrent to others, so ice elementals who had taken the traditional path of spear-wielding were well-known, feared even better and avoided.

 

However, the ones that _didn't_ use that method had the potential to be even scarier. They either used forms of fighting that were more common, but changed to fit their element, or created some… cruel and unusual forms of combat. Of course, not all ice mages were terrors, but they had that reputation.

 

Given the right training, Shuuichi could have been one of them. Maybe.

 

Misaki had had some slightly more severe burns on herself. Her hands, in particular, had been a bit singed, probably because of the jets of flame shed been forming. The burns on the other parts of her body had probably been caused as her power gradually overwhelmed her, right before the overload had happened.

 

The overload had manifested in an explosion which had understandably sent people running. Ice shards and flame weren't things that people would want to deal with on a regular day, thoughtless of one like this. It was pure lu k that they'd managed to cancel out each other's effects before anything too severe happened.

 

Right now, that area of the courtyard was getting cleaned up while Shuuichi and Misaki were spending some more time in the healing caskets.

 

It was almost ironic that a symbol of death had become a symbol of life as well. For some reason, magically imbued caskets were naturally better than most other forms of healing chambers. Healing _coffins_ would be used for the more extensive injuries, but those would hopefully be unlikely.

 

(He hoped there would be no reason to have to try and heal someone who was close to the unforgiving clutches of death, but if something like that did happen, the royal infirmary had such supplies.)

 

(Having to use just the caskets felt like a small defeat; something like _that_ would definitely be debilitating both to his ego and the general morale within the castle.)

 

(Though he would deny that first part if asked.)

 

Kaito tried to ignore the feeling of unease as he watched the status-displaying crystals hover above the two healing caskets. They would both be fully healed soon, so there was nothing to worry about. It was highly unlikely that anything would go wrong, really. Those injuries hadn't been life-threatening, just bad enough that the healers had thought it would be best to make sure they got a little more care than normal.

 

It was going to be fine.

 

No, that wasn't right.

 

It _was_ fine, and he was worrying over nothing by this point.

 

In spite of that fact, he couldn't help himself from lingering, from trying to be sure that nothing else could go wrong after the real catastrophe had passed.

 

He wasn't sure if it was simply pitiful or outright stupid. He'd been called both over the course of his lifetime, so it wasn't as if it would be a lie. The healers were still there, watching over the healing caskets. However, instead of feeling some needless obligation to try and atone for something that had already happened, they were making sure that nothing went wrong with the healing process.

 

And they stayed like that for a while, Kaito simply standing by as the healers worked at their craft.

 

Then Kaito felt a sense of completely unwarranted terror flow through him. His senses screamed for him to look over the place where he was to make sure that there wasn't anything amiss. He gritted his teeth so hard that he swore that they creaked, and crossed his arms. This feeling of terror wasn't something new. On the contrary, it was the only warning he had before a certain someone made a needlessly dramatic entrance.

 

Speak of the devil, and he shall appear.

 

Kokichi proudly flung open the door to the infirmary and walked in as if there was nothing wrong, humming a tune under his breath as he closed the door behind him.

 

It took a few seconds for Kaito to regain the ability to speak.

 

“Good morning to you too, Kokichi,” he said.

 

“Awww, _just_ a good morning? Not even a good morning _hug_?”

 

“Maybe we can see about that when my limbs have stopped trying to lock themselves together out of terror.”

 

“Can't help it,” Kokichi said breezily. “A necromancer aura just naturally does that to people. It's an instinctive repulsion. Life doesn't like death.”

 

Kaito scoffed. “Isn't _that_ the truth.”

 

“Well, it's probably obvious why I'm here, isn't it?”

 

“The reason doesn't immediately come to mind, no.”

 

“Aww, really? You know they won't _talk_ about this stuff, you know?”

 

It was a risky subject, then. Kokichi hadn't come for just a friendly visit; he'd come with more deliberation than that, and probably for good reason.

 

Maybe his unease earlier had been warranted, at least a little bit.

 

“Even so, we've been told not to take the risk. Besides, why would you want to bring those topics up now? Hadn't we finished consulting one another over that already?”

 

“The work of royals never ends, especially when they have external duties placed on them.”

 

Kaito raised an eyebrow. Surely the Conference wouldn't have issued a new directive over something like _this_ , would they? Even if there were informants among the servants, it had been established long ago that events like this would happen at unfortunate times, and that reporting them would do nothing to solve the problem or help the afflicted.

 

What this meant was that something entirely new had been brought up.

 

“Is it severe?” he asked.

 

“Depending on your perspective, it could be overreacting at a warning strike or closing up holes in order to bolster the defense.”

 

“Internal or external?”

 

“External.”

 

“Where?”

 

“Musiqua.”

 

If Kaito hadn't been on edge before, he was definitely on edge now. If something had happened over there, it could lead to something major.

 

“Where's Kaede?”

 

“At the normal meeting place.”

 

And with that, they moved as if an unspoken signal had gone off.

 

Kaito swore that he could already hear the healers starting to gossip about this. For goodness sakes, couldn't they at least wait until he'd actually left? Their scents had also shifted to the sharp, stinging smell of morbid fascination.

 

He made sure to shut the door firmly behind them. If they had any of their wits about them, they'd keep what they'd heard within the four walls of that room without trying anything.

 

(Most servants would get the message, but a few of them were a little bolder than they needed to be.)

 

(They usually lost it after a few chance encounters.)

 

Well, wasn't _this **marvelous** _ news?

 

Kaito was sincerely hoping that this would be a minor problem because if more than one kingdom was currently on Junko’s radar, it could spell trouble for the other plans the Royal Conference had laid out.

 

Depending on how shaken Kaede seemed to be, he'd be able to know how severe things were. An unfortunate method of measuring disruption, but one that was sometimes necessary.

 

This day seemed to keep on getting even more off-model by the minute… all he could do was hope that a major event hadn't been sparked off. The Conference had been known to overreact a few times, sometimes accidentally, other times deliberately in order to press the message harder than it would have done otherwise. The latter might have seemed excessive, but it had saved everyone's hides a few times before. It would be dangerous to not listen.

 

All he hoped was that it wasn't as severe as his mind was trying to convince him it was. It was understandable, seeing what had just happened, but getting himself worked up could cloud his judgment.

 

And while that wouldn't cause a disruption as large as these other two events, it wouldn't really be a good idea. He had to stay as calm as he could. If not for any self-righteous reason, he could make sure that he didn't screw up twice in rapid succession. He wasn't keen on finding out what the Conference would do if something like that happened; sending both Kokichi and Kaede ever had shown just how on edge they were. The second measures would probably be more far-reaching than that, and they would spark even more unrest than what had happened after this.

 

To say that wasn't something he needed right now would be an understatement.

 

Two people in the infirmary because of an uncontrollable magical incident, and now news was coming that could either mean that Sayaka, in particular, was going to be under scrutiny, or that everyone else would be roped into yet another emergency Conference.

 

Perfect.

 

He made a mental note to check up on Shuuichi and Misaki later if he even got the chance. Sure, the reports had said that nothing was wrong, but…  Going through something like that felt like smacking your head through a solid wall of magical energy.

 

Even if their vitals were fine, they were probably going to be disoriented. Misaki, in particular, seemed like the type to hunt for an explanation, looking at her background. And Shuuichi wouldn't be a slouch in this area either, he was sure. He knew how to track down gossip channels, and he'd probably noticed the rather noticeable halt in most of it.

 

It wasn't like he hadn't been ready to take that problem; the issue was that today just seemed determined to not give him much of a break today.

 

There wasn't anything he could do about that, sadly. What he _did_ know was that for as long as the sun was still able to shine, he'd be able to get through the day.

 

Being a solar elemental had to count for something, after all.

 

It might have been a stupid sentiment, but it was one that brought him a little rest of mind. And a little peace of mind was better than being frazzled beyond belief, wasn't it?

 

In this case, it had to be. And with that thought, he readied himself for whatever news Kaede would have in store for him and Kokichi.


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shuuichi is a little dazed when he wakes up.

**CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE**

When Shuuichi woke up, he initially didn’t know where he was.

 

He was in somewhere… somewhere that was a soft, rippling green. It felt really comfortable, but what raised questions in his mind was the fact that he could tell that it was surrounding him like some form of… containment. Looking above him, it looked like a dome of some sort.

 

He looked to his sides, and instead of that curved pattern, it looked more straight. It was like he was in some sort of box. Or even a healing chamber, really. The more he thought about it, the more he felt sure of it.

 

The problem was that he couldn’t remember why he would be in a healing chamber to begin with. Not initially, at least. He closed his eyes and tried to think back on what he could have done to land himself in this sort of situation.

 

His internal clock said that it was probably some time in late afternoon. That was odd. Wouldn’t he have already trained with Misaki by now? Or, more likely, with how late he’d gotten up, he should still be training.

 

Training.

 

_Training._

 

 **_Oh_ ** _._

 

The memories didn’t quite rush back like an overwhelming torrent, and they didn’t come chronologically. But remembering feeling overloaded with power and the sound of both himself and Misaki screaming was more than enough evidence he needed to piece everything together. It had been a leyline that had acted up for no discernible reason and had managed to overload the two of them simultaneously. He could feel his limbs ache just thinking of the sheer strain they had to have been put under.

 

Having some ice powers was a blessing when it came to pain. Water alone had healing properties and could lessen pain, but ice often acted like a complete pain nullifier. The problem was that he could end up hurting himself if his powers happened to act up while he was undergoing physical strain, or if he was pushing his limits.

 

Case-in-point, the fact that he’d somehow managed to land himself in here. At the very least, he’d been unconscious. But he had to wonder just how much or how little damage he’d actually sustained. It was uncommon, but magical explosions didn’t always result in physical injuries. In the right hands, they could be used to completely fuck up someone’s internal magic systems while leaving their physical bodies untouched. Most natural magical sources often took that route when it came to damage.

 

That didn’t sound all that good, looking at what had been happening recently. The last thing he needed was something that could potentially set back his progress. If his body didn’t need to take a break but his mana pools were out of whack, it could be a while until things stabilized, and that could last from a potential few days to a few _months_. And even if it didn’t last for that long, not being to actively practice could set him back a little.

 

He closed his eyes and tried to assess the state of his mana pools. He remembered that his elemental mana pool had been pretty drained, so he’d switched to using his general mana pool.

 

That meant that it was a toss-up between whether one or both of them were shot. He could live without his general mana pool for a bit, but if it was his elemental mana pool that had decided to get closed off, it wouldn’t be all that ideal.

 

First, he probed his elemental mana pool, trying to see if anything was wrong. The feeling of fluidity and coolness seemed to slowly envelop him, starting from his chest and slowly flowing over to the rest of his body. It had been… a long time since he’d really explored his mana pools like this. The most he’d done recently was just quickly checking the depth of his mana pool and assessing how much mana he’d lost or how much he had left, if not both at once. What he was doing _now_ , however, was checking how his mana was flowing. If it was too calm or too turbulent, he’d know that something was wrong.

 

He couldn’t check much past that level since he wasn’t one of those people who preferred to absolutely _scour_ their mana pools at least three times a day for any single hint of inconsistency, but he was sure that he wouldn't need to. If anything was wrong and he could easily sense it, he would know that _something_ was wrong.

 

He couldn’t help but feel a little nervous as he probed it a little further, trying to see if anything was wrong. In return, all he could sense was the cool, constant flow of his natural mana pool. It seemed to move in slow, calming waves, flowing through him almost with more ease than blood. Nothing seemed to be off; nothing was flowing too quickly, too slowly or in any erratic patterns.

 

It all seemed… normal.

 

That was good, wasn’t it? It was unlikely that there was something really and truly wrong with him, so he decided he would check his general mana pool.

 

And from there, he carefully reached out to his general mana pool. It was slightly warmer than his elemental mana pool, and it felt a bit less familiar and comforting. It didn’t exactly feel completely foreign and unknown, but it just didn’t have the same depth and comfort. It seemed to be flowing a little faster than his elemental mana pool since it wasn’t strictly bound to the boundaries of water and ice. He could feel it a little distantly, rippling through his body a little slower than his elemental mana. Whatever the case, it seemed to be flowing normally as well… it just felt a little slower than it was supposed to be.

 

Not wanting to take too much risk, he dug down a little deeper, looking for anything that could be trying to halt its cycle or slow it down. He didn’t find anything, so he wondered just what was happening. His elemental mana pool had been a little beyond alright, so why would this be happening?

 

Then it clicked.

 

Minor mana siphoning. Since he’d almost run his elemental mana pool ragged, when he’d put in here, it was a natural thing that it would siphon some mana from the other available mana pool in his body so it could strengthen itself. If it had been the other way round, his general mana pool would have taken some mana from his elemental mana pool. There wasn’t anything to be too afraid of, thank goodness.

 

He’d just been a little rattled, that was all.

 

And with that, he opened his eyes again. The pale green ceiling of the healing casket came back into view, and he felt himself relax a little. His physical body was… probably alright. He didn’t know just how much damage he could have sustained, but he didn’t feel as if he was injured.

 

Sure, feelings could be inaccurate at times, but since he was in a healing casket that was probably being curated by people who had honed their craft, he assumed that he could play it safe this time.

 

The next issue was for how he’d be able to get out. For obvious reasons, the casket probably couldn’t open from the inside, but he wondered how he’d be let out. Just going the old-fashioned way of it only opening when the healers physically or magically opened it could be reliable but would be impractical when they were taking care of an extensive amount of people. Or really, just more than four people at a time. The most practical thing to do would be to cast a scanning spell that would let it open only after the person inside was healed to the point of being able to function properly.

 

It _was_ generalizing, but it was often the best thing to do. So all he really needed to do now was be patient and wait for the magic to scan him again before the casket o--

 

He felt an unceremonious vitals-checking spell descend on him like a cold, heavy blanket. He sore that the air had been completely knocked out of his lungs as he felt it cycle through his body in quick, disorienting waves.

 

His vision went solid white for a few seconds before he heard something click. Almost instinctively, he rushed to sit up, screwing his eyes shut and rubbing them intensely in order to wipe away the hazy after-image of that bright flash. He groaned, wondering what that had been meant to be. He didn't think that he was the type to “pass out” like that under pressure, but that definitely couldn't be some sort of standard procedure, could it? He hadn't been trying to escape, so completely throwing him off guard like this was unnecessary…

 

After a few seconds of just keeping his hands over his eyes, he slowly opened his eyes.

 

He sighed thankfully when he realized that no, he wasn't going to be blinded again.

 

“So you saw the flash too?” a familiar voice asked.

 

Shuuichi turned a little to see Misaki, who looked almost as exhausted as he felt. The reassuring thing was that she didn't look too worse for wear; he couldn't see any injuries, and the only thing that could be said to be out-of-place was her understandably messy hair and her slightly tired eyes.

 

He couldn't be much worse than her, he hoped.

 

“‘Too’?” he asked.

 

“According to the healers, it's kind of left up to random chance if you see that weird flash or not after you've been scanned.”

 

“Well, at least I can take comfort in the fact that I'm not the only one who's had to suffer from that experience,” he said, feeling a bit contented. “And speaking of the healers, where are they?”

 

As if on cue, he heard someone move around the other side of the room. As soon as he heard the noise, he turned toward it.

 

Two women stared back at him, in the traditional healer attire. One of them had curly pink hair and purple eyes, while the other had short blue hair and orange eyes. Both of them had neutral expressions on their faces, and they were both holding the same casual stance.

 

Shuuichi couldn't help himself from raising an eyebrow. This seemed a little… strange. It wasn't like he could really pinpoint a specific thing that made him uneasy. They certainly weren't doing anything that could be perceived as threatening, and their behavior wasn't too out of the ordinary.

 

Most healers went about their own business after they had ascertained that whoever they'd been treating was fine. The odd thing was that these two didn't seem to be doing anything. But that wasn’t something that was very unusual. Who was to say that his awakening hadn't interrupted them or something?

 

But they seemed as if they weren’t really doing anything of value, so he wasn’t completely sure about the situation at all. He looked to Misaki, the unspoken question clear in his actions.

 

She looked at him and shrugged. She had no idea what they were intending to do with this attitude either. Whatever the case, as far as he was concerned, he didn’t feel like trying to hold a conversation if they were just going to stand there and do nothing.

 

With that in mind, he looked toward the two healers again.

 

“I'm assuming that my friend and I are fine,” he said. He didn't ask it, he simply made a flat statement.

 

They nodded in unison.

 

“So the both of you have nothing to do. Nothing to monitor or record or anything like that? And nothing to prepare in case some other incident happens later today? I’m guessing you’re very well-prepared, then.”

 

The nodding was a bit more hesitant this time and Shuuichi decided to pry at it.

 

“So... you're still here. For what reason?”

 

Silence.

 

“If you're going to gossip, you might as well do it somewhere else. And are you two _sure_ that you don’t have other things to attend to besides standing over there like a pair of statues?” His tone was a bit accusatory, but in his defense, it was getting awkward.

 

(It was almost as awkward as how most of the general castle staff seemed to disappear into thin air as soon as any non-servant went by… good grief. What nonsense.)

 

They stood there, almost looking as if he hadn't even spoken at all.

 

“Or are you going to _report_ this to someone higher in the hierarchy? What would you be looking for, I _wonder_. What sort of juicy gossip could you be trying to get from two people who have just woken up from getting tossed around by a magical surge, hmm? I’d love to hear it.”

 

That did it.

 

They looked at each other for a moment before teleporting away in an instant. As they did, Shuuichi felt a little relief flow through him.

 

However, he suspected that his thin insinuation probably hadn't been the only thing which had encouraged them to leave. It was possible that their leaving was triggered by something else entirely.

 

And almost precisely at the moment when he thought that, he heard someone’s footsteps coming closer to the infirmary. Like any rational person would do, he turned to look at the door, a little after Misaki had already done so. The person was close, so he'd probably be able to pick up their scent pretty soon.

 

The familiar smell of pine and lavender came barely a split second before the door opened. And in walked Kaito, who looked both a little tired and a little resigned.

 

“Glad to see that we all look like varying degrees of tired,” Shuuichi quipped.

 

Kaito looked at him and shrugged, smiling slightly. “Two people in this room were thrown across the castle grounds by a rogue leyline while one had to listen to the uncomfortable process of someone getting chewed out over something they didn't really have control over. It’s two different kinds of stress.”

 

Well, that made sense to him. However, Misaki still looked a bit miffed. Shuuichi was sure that he already knew why.

 

“At least we're on the same page with that,” Misaki started. “But the one thing that both Shuuichi and I are dying to know is _why_ you didn't tell us about that leyline.”

 

And there it was. Shuuichi turned to Kaito expectantly, silently waiting for an explanation. She was… a bit of a case when it came to safety, so she probably wouldn’t be taking this calmly any time soon.

 

Kaito sighed before starting. “The last time it acted up like that was over a decade ago. That particular leyline is an oddity because, for some strange reason, it just can't be tracked.”

 

It sounded reasonable. A short, simple explanation that could be backed up slightly with just how suddenly it had reacted earlier in the day. Most leyline overloads were easier to track. So much so that the leyline itself would give off an uncomfortable amount of magical energy that made the most sensible people pick a better place to stay. Shuuichi didn't really feel like pressing the issue.

 

Misaki didn't look impressed, obviously determined to pursue things a little further. “So you're saying you had no other option than to hope for the best. There’s no way to even simply corral it, or even section it off?”

 

Kaito nodded, looking a bit frustrated. “Unfortunately, that’s the case.”

 

“So it just flares up at random and you can't contain it?”

 

“Believe me, we've tried. And by ‘we,’ I mean _several_ generations of royalty and powerful mages. It's become widely accepted as one of those things that seem to have been kicked over by fate as an afterthought.”

 

“And what about the incident before the one that allegedly happened over ten years ago?”

 

“The incident before _that_ was at least a century prior. And if you want to try tracing it back further, it alternates between isolated incidents and a string of minor disasters.”

 

“Mm-hmm. And how do I know you're not lying?”

 

It was Kaito's turn to look unimpressed. “That leyline tossed _me_ around over a decade ago. It might have done some minor changes to my mana pool, but I assure you, it didn't ruin my memory. And since then, it hasn't acted up again until today.”

 

Misaki blinked, caught a bit off guard. “That sounds unpleasant.”

 

“It _was_. Soichiro didn’t have an easy time of it either. Believe me, you can ask him if I don’t sound credible. Honestly, I’m just happy that both of you seem to be awake and coherent. It shouldn't have had any lasting effects on you two.”

 

“‘Lasting’?” Shuuichi asked, butting in without any pretense of grace. “That doesn't sound ominous at _all_ , you know.”

 

“Well, I can’t really help that. The effects vary from incident to incident. Sometimes people can get up immediately, other times they're completely knocked out for a few months. Most times, there are no lasting effects on someone’s mana pools. The few times that there are actual, lasting effects, it could go from permanent damage to temporary fluctuations. It varies, and it varies heavily,” Kaito said.

 

“So it's basically an inbuilt quirk that seems to be stuck in this place,” Shuuichi summarized. “Fantastic.”

 

Kaito shrugged. “It can’t be helped.”

 

Misaki sighed. “It’s almost as if there _has_ to be some sort of anomaly everywhere. I’m just wondering how much of this is a natural event and how much of it isn’t.”

 

Shuuichi looked at her. “Well, since we’re not from here, we don’t really have grounds to have a debate over it. And there are a lot of areas in various places that have these sorts of stories attached to them. And as such, they’re usually avoided. Remember the stories about ‘the well’?”

 

She shuddered. “ _Please_. I don't want to hear that story again, thanks. It was unnerving enough as a child. I wouldn't want to recount it to someone who didn't grow up with it either.”

 

He shrugged. “And that’s that. Besides, it does seem to be up to random chance; I think I saw some people walk around an area that the leyline should run through. Nothing happened, so it’s probably up to some sort of random chance.”

 

“But did anyone fight around that area? I find it strange that it chose to blow up on us specifically and not anyone else. It feels a bit weird.”

 

“Well, I don’t know about that,” Shuuichi said. “All I really know is that random chance doesn’t really discriminate between people. I know that I can name a few people who actually deserve to get smacked around like that, and none of you are on the list.”

 

“Is that meant to be reassuring?” Misaki asked.

 

Shuuichi thought for a few moments before nodding vigorously. “Yep!”

 

“Part of me feels as if that isn’t the case,” Kaito said jokingly.

 

“Oh, don’t worry! In terms of power and personality, I don’t seem to have inherited my parents’ ferocity. So you’re safe, don’t worry!” Shuuichi closed his eyes.

 

A lightly dumbfounded silence fell for a few seconds after Shuuichi’s overly-cheerful proclamation. To make sure that his conversation partners were still there, he cracked an eye open.

 

They seemed to be looking at each other with some sort of indecipherable gaze. They looked back at him after a few more seconds of that.

 

“Moving on,” Shuuichi started, “at the very least, that leyline doesn’t seem to be as dangerous as one of the walls back in my home. That particular hall of the castle needed to be sectioned off, but its effects sometimes seep into other areas of the castle for a short time.”

 

“What about the wall?” Kaito asked. Misaki looked on with a mix of dread and fascination in her gaze.

 

“It’s another unsolvable problem. One particular hallway was made out of a particular stone which had a rather unpleasant quirk interlaced with the rest of the spellwork. Walking too close to that hallway spawns a golem if you get too close to it. No matter who or what you are, it will chase you. The only way to get rid of it is to either run or teleport out of the castle, and stay away for a week.”

 

“Why the specific time frame of a week?” Misaki looked a bit skeptical.

 

“Because before that was figured out, people were often killed by the golem. Messily. And now that the special time frame is known, nobody is eager to recreate the effects that could render them an unidentifiable corpse.

 

“The problem is that every couple of years, that golem spell seems to jump to another area of the castle. My parents say they’ve found a way to predict it if they suspect it, but I’m not sure what they use to do it. None of the servants seem to be fond of it, though.”

 

There was silence for a few seconds.

 

Then Kaito broke it.

 

“ _What_?”

 

“Did I stammer?”

 

Oddly enough, Kaito and Misaki’s scents both seemed to turn to the same uneasy scent of worry at the same time. Had he said something incorrectly?

 

The spell didn’t seem to have any interest in coming anywhere near areas the currently-alive members of the Saihara Clan chose to spend their time, however, there had apparently been a trend where the servants quarters were targeted, particularly during times when the aforementioned members of the Saihara clan had had some difficulties with them. Luckily enough, that hadn’t really happened in the past couple of centuries.

 

(Mainly because the servants weren’t usually dealt with a lot of the time, but details could be needlessly finicky…)

 

What had they thought he’d said? Anyone would be anxious if they were in a situation where they could easily get killed, for goodness’ sake. It wasn’t exactly advanced magical spellcraft that he was talking about here.

  
Shuuichi sighed. Now _he_ was the one who was going to have to explain something that had been happening for centuries. At the very least, he knew what was going on with this one. And maybe he could take a nap afterward. He felt a bit… light-headed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, uh, I kinda felt I needed to make a small announcement of this...
> 
> But I want to apologize to all my readers who had to read my story the way it was BEFORE I tan through the entire thing with Grammarly. 
> 
> Y'all are superheroes; the amount of errors I managed to see were honestly chipping away at my will to live as I went through it. The amount of misspellings, double words ("the the" as well as "and and" is what comes to mind right now...) as well as everything else...
> 
> Honestly I feel as I should apologize for wasting your time; it was a hot fucking MESS.
> 
> The problem is that all I could really do was fix up the spelling and grammar, because by that point, my nerves were shot. I might need to go back and edit things if my writing style has actually changed, but I don't think it has. What I did mainly consisted of fixing those and rearranging a few sentences. 
> 
> Again, I'm so sorry for making you all have to read it when it looked like that... The description "raging dumpster fire" still comes to mind...
> 
> I also apologize if this seems overly long, unnecessary or self-centered or anything like that. But I kind of felt obligated to say this... For better or for worse.
> 
> Anyway, thank you for sticking around with me and this story, and somehow reading through that mess without dying...


	27. Chapter 27

**CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX**

It had taken an ungodly amount of explanation to convince Kaito and Misaki that, no, his parents  _ didn't _ use the servants themselves to see if that spell was acting up. Looking at his family's reputation, it was obvious to see how they could come to that conclusion, but even their cruelty had limits. Or at the very least, they were being strategic with their actions. 

 

(It was probably the latter. They probably would kill a servant, if they either acted as spies for another family or were attempting to expose their future plans. However, even those scenarios were rather unlikely.)

 

(These were  _ servants _ he was talking about. It was only in stupid romantic novels or adventure stories that a servant could rise up against their masters. In real life, if that were to happen, it would require a stupid amount of coincidences that just weren't feasible if one simply sat down and thought of the probability.) 

 

(Besides, they couldn't be treated that terribly compared to some gossip that he'd heard earlier. They were mostly ignored and left to their own devices, and that in itself could be seen as being overly accommodating. Some clans lived in a fear of betrayal so great that the servants were routinely monitored to make sure they weren't planning anything. And those people were the more reasonable section of that particular group.)

 

( _ Reasonable _ . In some circles, that was seen as  _ reasonable _ behavior. Whenever he was reminded of things like that, he felt a bit thankful that his family was so isolated. There was no reason to obsessively stalk and question the servants, after all. Being busy stirring up trouble with other clans left no time for them to try anything like that, thankfully.)

 

Killing off the servants would be akin to shoving splinters under their own nails. Self-destructive and painful to watch and experience. They were normally too busy with their less-than-legal practices to bother with the general upkeep of the castle. In fact, they often didn't seem to be present in the castle to start with. The servants were the ones tasked with that, and even though their employers weren't going to win the title of saint anytime soon, it was unlikely that they could just up and get another job, even if they wanted to. For one, they were uneducated laborers, and for a second reason, nobody would really be jumping to hire them if they knew who they had worked for previously. 

 

It was a lose-lose situation. Some might call it a pity, others might call it misery-inducing. He felt like it was a little bemusing, but not much like a tragedy. 

 

Anyway, it wasn't like everything had hit rock-bottom at their job, either. As long as they didn't bother digging into anything the Saihara clan did, they wouldn't have anything to worry about. And judging by the gossip of theirs he had heard, they seemed to be well-acquainted with that little standard. 

 

And on top of all that, hiring new staff would be needlessly tedious. 

 

By the time he'd finished explaining that, he hadn't felt like talking anymore. The light-headed feeling seemed to have intensified a little and the most he could think of doing was making a nest and falling asleep. 

 

(The strange thing was that they somehow  _ still  _ didn’t seem convinced by what he’d said. However, they’d let it drop with little fuss. He felt a little thankful for that, but a little confused. There wasn’t anything to be worried about; why did they still seemed worried? He could only wonder why…)

 

It had been a while since he'd nested. Whenever he did, it was a special affair that took a little time to finish, mainly because he was very, very particular about how comfortable his nest had to be. The only time he could care less about what it looked like was when he was in heat, and even then, he'd still be fussy with it. 

 

And judging my Misaki’s scent, she seemed to be thinking the same thing. 

 

After they told Kaito about the little incident that had happened earlier with the healers, he'd seemed a little irritated. In spite of that, he said that they were probably alright if they'd thought it was a good idea to go to the other side of the room and do nothing. He just wanted them to wait for a little while as he summoned some other healers to do a final checkup before they left. 

 

(It had seemed odd that there were multiple sets of healers until Shuuichi remembered that the castle he was currently in had an active guard system. A lot of people could get injured at once, so it was far more sensible to have an equally large amount of healers to make sure that everyone got adequate treatment. And even during peaceful times, people could get caught in all sorts of stupid situations.) 

 

(Case in point, what had happened a few hours earlier. The leyline incident, or whatever it could be called. It was a fantastic example of why he'd never been all that big on magic training in the first place. Not that he didn't appreciate Misaki’s help, and he wasn't exactly pissed off about the fact that he was actually getting better at using his magic. The problem was that he could happily do without incidents like that which managed to knock him out and land him in the infirmary.)

 

(Sure, one had to crawl before you could walk, and learning to walk was guaranteed to make sure one fell down a lot. However, he was sure that such a spectacular fall wasn't really needed in this particular process. Maybe it was reason talking, maybe it was irritation talking. Whatever the case, he didn't like it. Unfortunately, it had already happened, and he couldn't do anything about it.)

 

(Life wasn't always fair, and this was a good example of that.)

 

After the healers had announced that they were good to go, they had clambered out of the healing caskets as quickly as they could. Misaki had gotten out more quickly that Shuuichi had. 

 

He wondered why. 

 

They'd taken a while to regain their bearing, and after they'd done so, Kaito had taken his leave. He'd said something that Shuuichi couldn't really remember, but he knew that what he'd said was elaborate speak for “attempted damage control and reassurance.” It was probably meant for the person who had been chewed out earlier. 

 

(Shuuichi wondered why. It probably had to do with Royal Conference business, was for sure. However, why would anyone need to be chewed out like that? Unless something similar to the attempted infiltration had occurred somewhere else…)

 

(Wait.)

 

(If the Enoshima Empire had attacked somewhere else in the meantime, that definitely was cause for concern. Different kingdoms had probably exchanged different targets to keep them safe, and not every exchange could go smoothly. Not only that, but there had to be countries who weren’t involved with those efforts, but were still trying to fend off the Empire from starting yet another full-scale invasion. It was a sobering thought.)

 

(He wondered if he could ask Kaito about it sometime later. It probably wasn't too nosy, especially considering it was the same organization in charge of this entire last minute bait and switch operation. He probably wouldn't get too many specifics, but a general overview would be a bit nice, if he could get one.)

 

(For now, however, he'd prefer to focus on other things.)

 

Besides, it wasn't as if he could really do much with or about the situation. Pushing back any questions to a later date was probably the best thing he could do. 

 

He already had something to focus on, after all. It wasn't as if it was some sort of grand task or anything, but it was  _ something _ . Something, in this case, referred to the bed sheets and clothes he was levitating some way behind him. They were his. Misaki would be bringing her own things along too, and together they'd be making a nest in the nesting room. 

 

Having the discussion that had led to this had been a much better one than the initial “no, my parents don't kill the servants on a regular basis” one. They'd just bid Kaito goodbye and were walking toward their rooms when Misaki had asked the question. 

 

_ “So… can we nest together?” _

 

That question had made Shuuichi stop and think for a little bit. 

 

Shuuichi had heard that friends could nest together at times, but his lack of them for most of his life hadn't exactly given him the opportunity to test that theory. Besides, he was sure that any nesting partner he'd have would be taken aback at just how ornery he could become when it came to his nest. 

 

He told her as much. 

 

And then she'd initiated a competition, to see just who was more particular about how their nest looked. In any other situation, he would have looked the other way, but with his current mood, his pride as an Omega had barely dodged a crippling hit. 

 

Challenging an Omega to prove just how well put-together their nests were could go either of two ways. One, it could be a friendly or joking proposition. Two, it could be taken as a challenge which could make or break an Omega’s ego and reputation. 

 

In his mind, he knew that Misaki had meant the first meaning, but his screeching inner Omega thought that it was barely a step above the second option. He couldn't step down from such a challenge even if he wanted to, so he'd looked her in the eye and accepted. His own determination to outdo her almost surprised himself. He wasn't particularly competitive at the best of times, and here he was, accepting such a challenge. 

 

And from there, they'd found out where the nesting room was. 

 

He'd barely touched that blue and gold slab of glass after training had started. However, he wasn't about to ask anybody about the location of something when he had what amounted to a small, comprehensive map at his disposal. The main reason he never really used it was because he mainly kept to the areas of the castle he actually knew. Even that night of wandering around the castle was meant to be exploration. 

 

What he wouldn't admit to anyone was that Misaki had had to remind him that, yes, when they had first gotten to the castle they'd gotten those little contraptions. 

 

What he had a hard time admitting to himself was that Misaki actually needed to help him find where the hell he’d put the damn thing. He didn’t normally use magical devices like that, so he’d probably put it away while thinking that he wouldn’t have to use it again.

 

The crowning moment of the entire affair was when Misaki had needed to refresh his memory about how to actually use it. The only saving grace of the entire fiasco was that a fellow Omega was the one helping him. A Beta could easily be condescending, and most Alphas he knew of, with… an exception or two… would be even worse. The last thing he really needed was extra sarcasm on top of this little display of incompetence.

 

Whatever the case, he and Misaki had managed to navigate through the map and find where the nesting room was.

 

A nesting room was exactly what it sounded like: a room for Omegas to nest in. It was mainly used when Omegas wanted to nest together or just wanted a change of scenery whenever. Sometimes they were used for heats, but most people usually preferred to spend those in their own rooms.

 

Since both he and Misaki liked to make large, elaborate nests, they decided that it would be best to nest with each other on a bigger bed. Said beds were usually provided in nesting rooms, so they were fine.

 

And that was why he was on his way to it, occasionally checking the little map to make sure that he was going in the right direction. He was going to get there soon, and he’d finally be able to start nesting. It was a bit immature, but he felt like if anyone got in his way, he wouldn’t find it amusing in the slightest. 

 

(And the person would probably be the victim of either a dirty look or a few scathing remarks. It wouldn’t really gain him any favor points with anyone, but it would make him feel better. A little bitchy, he knew, but he wasn’t all that nice in the first place. What would the person have expected, really? A warm welcome for delaying him?)

 

(Ridiculous.)

 

Hypothetical situations could be a joy to consider.

 

He glanced down at the map again and found that he was, thankfully, quite close to the nesting room. And absolutely nothing random had happened on the way. Luck seemed to be giving him a little slack, especially after that leyline incident.

 

Just thinking about nesting made him feel eager to finally start making his. That, combined with a little sleepiness. He could cuddle with Misaki later on, so that was something to keep in mind to avoid falling asleep now. 

 

Besides, he wanted to stay awake for the nesting competition, after all. Extra inspiration to stay awake! Now, it was only a few more steps and then he could--

 

_ Splash!  _

 

Shuuichi turned around, startled by the noise. It sounded… strange. It sounded as if someone had thrown water at the wall. Violently. And yet, there wasn't any water to be seen. Or a  _ person _ for that matter. Just an empty hallway. 

 

How odd. 

 

“You saw something interesting back there?” 

 

Shuuichi turned around to see Misaki, who was ready with her own nesting materials. He hasn't heard her approach. Probably because he'd been trying to find whoever had made that noise. 

 

“No, not really. I heard something strange and looked back to see what it was. I think I'm hearing things,” he said, shaking his head. 

 

“Really? I think you might be jumping to conclusions there. Sometimes things like that happen, it's not that much of a big deal--”

 

_ Splash!  _

 

There it was again, but it was coming from behind Misaki. Nothing seemed to be soaked, either. She looked a little confused and started to turn around. 

 

“There's nothing behind you, either,” he told her. 

 

“Huh. Is that, by any chance, the same sound you heard earlier?”

 

“Yes. I think someone might be trying to mess with us at this point. I'd probably appreciate it more if they  _ didn't _ .” His tone darkened a bit with that last sentence. 

 

He'd… never really liked pranks. They were so time-consuming and elaborate, yet their payoff was either a minor annoyance or extensive property damage. Why people seemed to love them was a mystery Shuuichi never wanted to be ape to solve. 

 

“We'll let's just get in the nesting room before they try something else,” Misaki said. “I don't want to see if they actually have some buckets of water around them.”

 

That set off alarm bells. Sure he could easily remove the water from himself and Misaki, but he wasn't very eager to take an impromptu shower in what was bound to be needlessly cold water at best. At worst, the water could have some sort of magical dye mixed in that could potentially alter his appearance temporarily. 

 

(something along those lines had happened a few years ago at a party. Almost immediately, people had started trying to escape in any way they could think of. Some actually threw themselves out of windows in desperation. Their appearances were saved, but at what cost?) 

 

(He'd gone the traditional coward route of hiding under a table. It worked marvelously. And he'd been able to see the entire fiasco go do whenever he peeked out from under the table cloth, so that had been convenient.) 

 

(In any case, he'd gained a dislike for things like that and he definitely hadn't changed much since then. He didn't fancy, say, getting his hair and eye colors switched to something else entirely for any length of time. Plus, he wasn’t ready to deal with ruined clothes either.)

 

Shuuichi nodded, and they both rushed into the nesting room before any further incidents could occur. Neither of them needed that right now. 

 

As he shut the door, he swore he heard the sound of laughter. He wondered if it was the person who'd decided to try and play that bad prank on them. He wasn't about to open the door; that would just be  _ begging  _ to get hit in the face by something.  He wasn't ready to find out what ‘something’ could be. 

 

He quickly activated the runes on the door, simply pushing a little of his general mana into it. The sound of bells filled the air, and the runes glowed briefly. 

 

They glowed a soft shade of green for a few seconds, before easing into a soft white, before the glow subsided. It was a nice flair, and Shuuichi couldn't help but feel a bit comforted. He checked the map, and sure enough, it showed that both he and Misaki were occupying the room. 

 

The runes probably had an anti-magic effect on the other side of the door, so it would make sure nobody could try to use magic to sneak up on them. He was sure there had to be a basic lock spell as well, so their privacy was ensured. 

 

If the would-be prank puller wanted to drench someone with that sort of water, then they could do it to Amano, or any of that idiot’s cronies, really. Shuuichi didn't care what they did as long as they made sure to stay far away from him.

 

He turned to Misaki. “I think we're safe, at least for now.”

 

“‘For now’? That sounds a bit ominous.”

 

“Well, depending on their character, they could just drench us in water when we actually leave the room. I'm just hoping that they target someone else.”

 

Misaki shook her head. “You're really going to wish that on others?”

 

“What can I say? I'm spiteful.”

 

“I, on the other hand, hope they give up and leave the others alone,” she said. “Us getting knocked out by that leyline was enough drama for the day, I think. Besides, we still need to have that nesting competition.”

 

“The competition that I'm determined to win.”

 

“And how are you so sure of your victory? We haven't even started yet.”

 

“I know the quality of my nests, Misaki. I think I have a good chance of winning.”

 

“And I think that I have a better chance of winning.”

 

“Oh, really?”

 

“Definitely.”

 

“Pride goes before a fall, you know. You _might_ want to keep that in mind.”

 

“And I could say the same to you. Enough talk, let's get down to business!”

 

And with that, the competition finally began. 


	28. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The competition may have began, but the nest construction itself hadn't. Any Omega worth their salt knew that for the *best* nest, you had to plan it out beforehand.
> 
> Shuuichi and Misaki are both extremely picky when it comes to their nests.
> 
> It *shows*. A lot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Featuring, a few scent(ing) headcanons I developed. I'm really just hoping they're actually comprehensible. 
> 
> Also featuring a case of "I wanted to write the nesting scene really badly for some time now and for some reason I managed to stretch it out so badly that I'm sure I managed to dislocate a few of its joints in the process."

**CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN**

However, before the nesting process started, there needed to be a little… preparation.

 

Imagine two Omegas faced with the challenge of a bare mattress. It was a situation that would ultimately prove if they actually knew what they were doing when they were nesting. Sometimes people passed well, and other times they were able to get away with making trashy nests.

 

However, in this particular situation, failure was simply not an option.

 

Sure, he and Misaki were nesting together, but that didn't mean that they wouldn't be sizing each other up the entire time. In a situation like this, it was almost required.

 

Not only did they have to know how to build a comfortable and good-looking nest, they also had to be able to discern how each other's scent worked. They couldn't use too many or too few items from either person because, apart from making the atmosphere uncomfortable, it could affect how the nest was built. Making it skew too much to the tastes of one of them could lead to the discomfort of the other person, and that would nullify the entire point of their nesting together in the first place.

 

And that just couldn't be a viable outcome in this situation. It simply couldn't be.

 

Even though a person couldn't actually register their own scent, it was reassuring to be surrounded by things they had either actively or passively scent marked. For some people, if they didn't have enough items like that surrounding them, it could lead to some mild paranoia. Depending on the person, it could also cause sadness, irritability, or outright anger. It depended on the person's general temperament to start with, so the effects were appropriately varied.

 

And just how their moods were varied, the way people scented things varied. Luckily enough for him, those many ways of scenting had been split into two general categories: active and passive scent marking.

 

Like their names implied, there was a sizeable difference between the two.

 

Shuuichi himself preferred to use passive scent marking. That simply entailed him _being_ around his things and not really doing much else. A good example was his bedsheets. He'd heard that some people chose to actively mark theirs, but he took the easy route of just lying in them and rolling around in them long enough to make sure that his scent stuck. It wasn't the strongest way of marking something as your own, but it seemed to be the best thing he could most of the time.

 

He never really had much, if any motivation to pursue active scent marking. Back home, since he'd been a permanent resident and one who didn't really go out much, there had been enough of his scent there that he hadn't seen the point in making it stronger.

 

It was the difference between telling contentment that something was there and being able to forget about it with ease, and increasing it to the point that it left an incessant tingling of irritation in the back of his skull. He'd only felt it a few times, but that had dissuaded him from active scenting quite a bit.

 

Not only that, but in this particular case, it would be a bad idea. He didn't actually live in this castle, after all. He was just a visitor, and after this was all over, all traces of him and everyone else would probably be eliminated as things went back to normal. He didn't want to make their job harder than it should be.

 

(Besides, active scent marking on things that he didn't own in a situation like this would be a clear sign of either blatant disrespect or an indicator that he didn't get out much and was easily panicked. People who did that when they were visiting a place tended to be young and inexperienced in life. It was a habit people were expected to grow out of, less for personal maturity and more for social purposes.)

 

(One simply couldn't embarrass their family by acting so childishly, after all. And if it wasn't childish, chances were that they were deliberately trying to make themselves the town's outcast. Not that obeying the rules was a perfect guarantee of being accepted either. It all depended on your background.

 

(In spite of that, it was a well-known childish insult to call someone a heavy scent marker.)

 

Misaki, on the other hand, seemed to be more of an active nester. In order to keep with the typical social standards, she'd brought some items that she owned, which had been scent marked previously.

 

And _heavily_.

 

Shuuichi had no idea how he'd been able to overlook her scent for so long. Maybe it had been because she wasn't an Alpha or a Beta that he had to look out for. Maybe it was because she was the first fellow Omega in his life who hadn't either been passive toward him or actively seek to bother his life. Maybe she used a spell that just managed to take attention off of it. He didn't know.

 

But right now, he could tell that her scent was a soft mix of rose and chamomile.

 

Chamomile.

 

The well known sleeping aid was a part of the scent of one of the most active people he had had the pleasure and occasional pain of knowing in his life.

 

Maybe it was just his sense of humor, but he found it amusing.

 

The best part of this was that she wouldn't even know, thanks to how their bodies were wired. The only reason it helped to have a lot of scent-marked things around oneself was because, for some odd reason, even though they wouldn't be able to pinpoint the scent at all, it still felt reassuring to be surrounded with something you knew on a subconscious level.

 

If it wouldn't be in poor taste, he'd have told her. The problem was that he wasn't quite ready to find out what his scent was. Misaki was the kind of person who matched things a lot, and in this situation, she'd respond with telling him what his own scent was.

 

He didn't feel quite up to that yet, if he was being truthful.

 

So, he didn't talk about it.

 

Besides, he has better things to do. For example, figuring out just what ratio of his blankets would even put the scent of Misaki’s specially scented little throw pillows.

 

He might have liked pillows a bit himself, but he preferred blankets. They were easier to surround himself in, and depending on his mood, he could either pretend to drown his sorrows with the warmth around him, or silently gloat about whatever had happened in his favor while being surrounded by a luxurious sense of comfort and safety.

 

Pillows… just didn't have the same effect for him, really. Apart from resting his head on them or occasionally cuddling with them when he felt particularly lonely, pillows weren't a huge part of his nesting habits.

 

And Misaki apparently had the completely opposite approach when it came to nesting.

 

Cue the current problem.

 

They hadn't even started properly making the nest yet, and they had already hit a wall. Neither of them wanted the other's scent to be buried, and balancing the two different mediums of scented objects would be difficult.

 

They might actually have to talk about whose scent was more intense and how they'd deal with it. Currently, they were sitting on the edge of the mattress, looking over all of the proposed nesting materials.

 

Shuuichi looked at Misaki.

 

Misaki looked at him.

 

The air was thick with the unanswered question of who would bring up the topic first. For obvious reasons, it was a little embarrassing.

 

Sure, Misaki might not put as much weight into it as he did, but… he'd never had to actually _talk_ about things like this before.

 

Misaki inhaled slowly, giving him a slight warning.

 

Shuuichi's stomach started to feel a little uneasy.

 

Then she spoke.

 

“Some people have called my scent intense before, so I tried not to overload things too much this time,” she said. Then she took a breath to steady yourself. “Your scent is… but it's kind of light. Not light as in like a breeze, but light as in a bit weaker than I thought it would be. I'm guessing it could be the way you scent your things?”

 

A tentative question.

 

Shuuichi nodded. “I prefer passive scent marking. My wrist glands tend to act up a bit when I try to attempt more active scent marking, so I don't often do it.”

 

“Really? That sounds a bit strange.”

 

“I guess. Part of the reason is that, the other part is a personal hangup. I'm just not… really affectionate in general, just to start with. That might have something to do with it. The only times I try active scent marking nowadays is during my heats, and even then, it's a toss-up depending on my mood.”

 

The conversation seemed a little… halting, and he hoped that he hadn't said too much in regards to that last sentence. However, he was trying to prove a point.

 

Active scenting was just… a bit too much effort for him to generally try, thoughtless if actually do, unless hormones had backhanded him.

 

(Or emotions. There had been a few times when he was younger when he'd do some active scent marking because he'd felt lonely. A few years of trying his best to not leave his room had eventually canceled out any urge to do that. Looking back on it, it was rather stupid. But since he had been the only one who he'd really been close to, it made a little sense. In a roundabout way.)

 

Misaki nodded, thankfully not seeming to have taken it the wrong way. “People have different preferences,” she said. “But how strong do you think the scent of my things seem?”

 

The real bombshell.

 

While Misaki’s scent was a soft blend, it seemed a bit intense. Maybe it was because of the close proximity, or the fact that there were so many scented items here. Whatever the case, it was quite absorbing. A few notes below irritatingly persistent, and some way above the level his scenting was at, he thought.

 

“It's a little strong, but not overwhelming,” he said. Not exactly the best answer, but it was he could really deduce.

 

“Hmm.” Misaki seemed to be thinking. “Something along the lines of a 55-45 split seems like it would be okay. What do you think?”

 

Shuuichi shrugged. “I haven't really nested with anyone beyond my mother when I was very young. I'll have to trust your judgment on this.”

 

Misaki frowned. “Really?”

 

“Really. She stopped doing that around the time I was ten or so. By that time my father was losing interest in me, and she followed suit soon after.”

 

“My dam invited me into her nest throughout my childhood and up into my teenage years. And it seems to be a semi-common occurrence. Depends on the family most of the time, really.” Tactfully, she danced around the actually contentious topic.

 

“Well, that's interesting,” he said. He really didn't feel like talking anymore; he just wanted to get down to nesting already. “So… since it's been decided, can we start nesting?”

 

To his mild happiness, he'd somehow managed to make that sentence not sound bratty.

 

Misaki nodded. “We'll need the sheets first, so we can start creating the base for the nest. And we can start with using yours, then building up from there,” she said, hopping off the mattress.

 

He followed suit, and immediately started looking through the pile of things he'd brought over.

 

The real nesting process was going to start now, and the last thing he wanted to do was make himself appear unskilled. Sure, he might have been new to the concept of nesting with someone like this, but he'd be damned if he acted as if he'd never made a nest in his life.

 

He wasn't sure if it was just him, but he swore he could feel the tension in the air had somehow doubled while he had done that simple task. It felt like the onus was on him to at least start this process properly.

 

He was new to this entire process in the first place, so Misaki was going to help him a lot from here. At the very least, he could at least get the material for the base of the entire nest before the entire balancing act for the rest of it came into play.

 

He was probably being a little over dramatic about this. At the very least, it wasn't too ridiculous this time.

 

He got the right sheet after a short time of moving things to get it, and he stood up.

 

Then he looked at Misaki.

 

She looked back at him and nodded.

 

From there, they fit the sheet onto the mattress, finally covering the bland white surface. It wasn't as if the blankets themselves were all that colorful, but everything would come together soon enough.

 

The stakes would also rise soon enough, and for the life of him, he couldn't help the morbid curiosity about just how intense things could get later on in the process it wasn't like he valued this sudden calm that had seemingly come out of nowhere, but he wasn't sure how long it would last.

 

At the very least, he could cherish it before all hell broke loose between them.

 

…---...

 

_Well, this is interesting._

 

Hell hadn't quite broken loose, but the gates had started to open. They'd started constructing the nest before they'd decided to take some time to plan some things out.

 

Layering the base blankets had been the easy part. It was almost fun, really. It was nice building a foundation for something good. The difficult part had quickly arisen when it came to the middle and high tiers of the blankets.

 

Apparently, both he and Misaki liked having soft nests, but the degree of softness was the real bone of contention. The problem was that there was a ridiculously narrow barrier between each of their preferred degrees of softness.

 

(The problem was all in the texture, thankfully. Their scents seemed to have evened out by this point. It might have been a close ratio that they were sticking to, but it wasn't one that was full-on impossible.)

 

(Impossible would require the use of decimals, and Shuuichi wasn't ready to see how anyone would deal with, say, laying down _half_ of a blanket.)

 

The barrier between their preferred levels of softness was so narrow that putting down the correct combination of blankets in these two tiers had probably taken them the last half hour to pin down.

 

During that time, they'd taken residence over the single sheet they'd been able to set down, and their sheets had been exchanged between each other in order to determine which ones would be used in what order. Before the exchange, Misaki had cast a scent-sealing spell, which meant that the current exchange wouldn't influence the scent of the sheets, and that the sheets wouldn't lose their scent in the meantime.

 

(He'd have to ask her about how to cast that spell sometime soon.)

 

It had taken a while, but they had finally managed to come to an agreement on everything.

 

It was clear that they were both _very_ picky when it came to their nests. Shuuichi was relieved that he probably wasn't coming off as overbearing and a bit worried that he might not win this little competition.

 

He hadn't given up hope yet, obviously, but he knew that there were areas that he might be a little outmatched in. He might be able to overcompensate a little in his strengths.

 

But in order to do that, he'd have to confirm what they were doing one last time…

 

“Okay, let me go over this again,” he said. “Five layers of base padding, seven layers of the filling and the final three layers on top?”

 

“Yes,” Misaki replied. “And everything is at a two-to-one ratio between your things and my own respectively.”

 

“So we finally have that down,” Shuuichi said, feeling a bit relieved. “But what about the pillows? How are we going to arrange them? With how well everything else has gone, it would be a shame for them to cause any issues…”

 

“Hmm… it depends on how close we end up being with each other when all is said and done. We might not exactly end up at the opposite sides of the bed, but we might need to scatter the pillows a bit to avoid our scents from getting too overwhelming.

 

“We'll have to cross that bridge when we get to it.”

 

Misaki looked as dissatisfied with that as he felt.

 

As it turned out, they greatly preferred to nest after they'd done enough preparation and wouldn't have to second-guess anything for any reason. Leaving even a small thing up to chance when it came to nesting was a bit like meticulously planning out the frosting colors one would use on a cake, _not_ deciding what they would actually be going got when frosting the cake, and just hoping that fate would be generous as they went to randomly decorate the cake.

 

To put it bluntly, it… was not the best idea. But Misaki had a point about how they didn't have much choice in the matter right now.

 

“That makes sense,” he said.

 

“Yep. Well, we should probably start putting the nest together now, shouldn't we?”

 

“Yes, we should.”

 

A comfortable silence fell between them for a few seconds.

 

Then Misaki broke it. “I bet I can arrange my parts of the nest better than you can.”

 

Shuuichi scoffed. “Bragging isn't one of your strong points, Misaki.”

 

“I'm not bragging. I'm simply stating the truth.”

 

“Stating the truth before you see precisely what I can do? It's not my first time nesting at _all,_ you know.”

 

“Well, how about you demonstrate those so-called _skills_?” Misaki’s smile let Shuuichi know that yes, he'd fallen right into that.

 

“I _will_ , and we'll see how much bravado you have left.”

 

“Oh, you're not _going_ to show me your abilities, you _are_ showing them right now!” And with that, Misaki tossed a blanket to him.

 

He caught it. “Very funny.”

 

“Look on the bright side, if that had happened a few weeks ago you'd have either run away from it or gotten hit in the face.”

 

“Oh, how nice of you to remind me,” Shuuichi said, unfolding the bedsheet. Ironically, she'd tossed one of his own sheets at him. This really was going to be a contest between Omegas. “You've got an interesting sense of humor, I'll say that.”

 

“That, or you have a flat sense of humor.”

 

Shuuichi finished unfolding the sheet, then looked at her for a few seconds. Then he swung her end of the sheet over toward her.

 

Naturally, she dodged out of the way before it could hit her, and caught the other end of the sheet with ease.

 

“Well, maybe it's a little sharper than I thought,” Misaki said.

 

“Very funny,” he said. “Let's get to the nest-building already.”

 

“Eager, aren't we?”

 

“You say that as if you aren't.”

 

“Touché.”

 

And with that out of the way, and the plan in mind, they _finally_ started constructing the nest.


	29. Chapter 29

**CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT**

…

 

Shuuichi felt simultaneously happy and exhausted. Nesting was one of the simultaneously fulfilling and ridiculous tasks that an Omega could undergo. It was some way above or below the strain of heat, depending on the person, apparently. Luckily for him, nesting was usually below heat on the stress scale.

 

However, in spite of that, he still didn’t like nesting too much. Most of the time, he preferred to just bury himself in a pile of blankets rather than make an actual nest. Whenever he _did_ nest, however, he went completely overboard. It was either the perfect nest, or absolutely nothing at all. There was no midpoint when it came to that spectrum for him, it was either all or nothing.

 

He knew fully well that he was ridiculous, but he personally thought that he was on the less absurd end of the spectrum. While he didn’t nest often, he’d heard about other Omegas who seemed to take pleasure in nesting at every single opportunity.

 

(Those were the ones who normally got the most expensive courting gifts. Potential suitors really played to that interest a lot, trying to win the Omegas over. However, they usually ended up failing, and the Omegas usually ended up with enviable hordes of nesting materials. At least, for those who were either courted by several suitors simultaneously or in rapid sucession.)

 

(Of course, that was most of them, or at least, those were the ones who were talked about the most when it came to those aspects.)

 

(It was Stoneca, for goodness sake. It was typical.)

 

And some people were, surprisingly, even more ridiculousy uptight about their nesting habits. And the more frequently they nested, the more absurdly detailed their nesting plans tended to become over time. He could respect those people, but he had a reasonable amount of fear toward them.

 

Even this relatively low-middle to high-middle tier nest that he and Misaki had made had taken a lot of effort. Honestly, if Shuuichi ever heard an Alpa or a Beta say anything that was even vaguely along the lines of “Omegas take nesting too seriously” ever again in his life, he would either slap them, glare at them from afar or hit them with either water or ice essence.

 

Nesting was _not_ fucking easy and he was half-prepared to argue over that point if he had to.

\---

_“No, no, no, the blankets aren't aligned correctly!” Shuuichi looked at the sheets, frowning. This couldn’t work, not like this. It might not be easy, but they were going to have to rebuild this layer. Luckily, they hadn’t gotten far, but it was definitely going to be frustrating._

 

_However, it would all be worth it in the end. He practically knew it in his bones. Temporary irritation would lead to a new comfort later when it came to this part of the nest. He knew it._

 

_Misaki had looked at him, her incredulity clear and understandable. “Are you serious?”_

 

_“Yes! They don't align well, can't you see?”_

 

_“They don't align well? You're splitting hairs over a case over an almost invisible misalignment!”_

 

_“It can change the way the other blankets feel, and not for the better. Especially the ones near the top layer with the heavier textures and adornments.”_

 

_“Are you sure this is worth redoing this entire layer for? It’s not like either of us are the Omega princess in ‘The Princess and the Pea,’ you know.”_

 

_“It's better to redo a layer that to constantly shift around over seemingly nothing at all. Nd of course I know none of us are that sensitive. However, take it from a visual standpoint. If things start off being a bit off, things will either look unappealing or everything could just layer incorrectly from there and cause some meadure of discomfort later.”_

 

_Misaki sighed. “Are you sure about this? I’m not the best with blankets, but if this happens on the first layer…”_

 

_“Believe me, I learned the lesson several times over when I was younger. Trust me on this one, Misaki.”_

 

_“This had better be worth it in the end, or so help me…”_

\---

_“Nope.” Misaki’s critical expression didn't help how Shuuichi felt about this._

 

_“‘Nope’? What do you mean, ‘nope’?!”_

 

_“The pillows need to be rearranged.”_

 

_“Again?!” Shuuichi suddenly felt as if his soul was leaving his body._

 

_“Yes, again. If we had to remove and replace entire blankets ten times, we’re going to put in just as much effort into the pillows, if not more. You_ **_know_ ** _that I can’t skimp on the pillows. Blankets are your forte, but the pillows are my territory.”_

 

_Shuuichi sighed. “This is the twentieth time we're doing this. They are_ **_finally_ ** _arranged in a way that shouldn't have us completely destroying everything in a few minutes, and they won't clash against the textures of the blankets.”_

 

_“But the scents are a bit unbalanced. Look at their placement a little bit more. It's not enough to say, wake us up from sleep, but it could make us feel a bit irritable later on.”_

 

_“We're not nesting individually, remember? Technically.”_

 

_“Those effects carry over a little when people nest together. Plus, logic isn't the first thing that checks in when you first wake up from sleep.”_

 

_“You have a point there.”_

 

_“Besides, it's moving a few pillows, not reassembling an entire layer of blankets!”_

 

_“That’s going to become a running gag at my expense, isn't it?”_

 

_“Yes.”_

 

_“And these are the_ **_central_ ** _pillows and cushions were talking about.”_

 

_“Mm-hmm.”_

 

_“The middle and outer layers haven't been laid down yet.”_

 

_“Indeed they haven't. And I will be moving things around a lot when they get placed.”_

 

_“Well, it's not like I have any place to complain.”_

 

_“Trust me, you'll be asking me for tips later. You're not going to regret it.”_

 

_“I still firmly consider myself to be a blanket person.”_

 

_“You'll come around soon enough.”_

 

_“You sound awfully confident about that.”_

 

_“You could say that I'm an experienced evangelist when it comes to matters like this.”_

 

_Shuuichi had suddenly felt like he'd gotten a bucket of lukewarm water poured over him. Misaki, obviously, had taken some amusement at his expense._

\---

Shuuichi could admit that, yes, both of them had a different list of priorities when it came to nesting. However, in this case, they'd managed to cancel each other out, or at the very least, cancel out each other's mild overspecialization.

 

Whatever the case might have been, he knew that it had resulted in the best nest he'd had the privilege of nesting in for the duration of his life so far. As far as he was concerned, it was perfect.

 

He sighed in contentment. This was a nice end to a day that had otherwise been almost completely unbearable. He snuggled further under the covers, relishing the feeling of comfort that was flowing through him. He hadn't even fallen asleep yet, and he felt as if his energy and mood had practically tripled. Not only was he in a comfortable nest, but he'd made the nest with someone he considered a friend.

 

It was a nice, although sappy feeling.

 

“Feeling comfortable?” Misaki asked.

 

“Guess,” Shuuichi said, not bothering to open his eyes.

 

“Well, thank you for enjoying my efforts so much. My blood, sweat and tears weren't used for nothing, then.”

 

Shuuichi cracked open an eye. “I'm trying to sleep. Can we save the debate for later?”

 

“You're just mad because I made the nest better.”

 

He scoffed. “As if. I'm the one who provided most of the information we needed to get the base to be comfortable enough, remember? If the base was bad, the rest of the bed wouldn't be optimally comfortable.”

 

“And I basically handed you the correct method of scent distribution for the most important layer. If I wasn't here, you'd be cringing under your perfect sheets.”

 

“And if I wasn't here, you'd be perched on top of your perfectly-organized pillows.”

 

“At least I didn't risk death while burying myself in my nests when I was younger.”

 

“May I introduce you to the art of death by suffocation? It probably isn't easy, but people can and have smothered other people to death. What are you going to do with the blankets? Make a noise?”

 

“If they fold up a blanket of the right size in the right way, they could probably improvise rope to choke you to death with or simply tie you up so you could be killed easily.

 

“And with all those blankets you like to sleep under, it's a good thing you're a water elemental, otherwise you'd have run a constant risk of choking to death underneath them. Thoughtless of how hot it could get under there. You won the parental lottery with that.”

 

Shuuichi hummed. “I guess you could say you won it too if I’m being honest. You’re a little brave when it comes to your style of nesting. I wouldn't feel safe just sleeping on a pile of pillows, just because of the exposure. And then the constant risk of death… not something I'd be fond of, really.”

 

Misaki sighed. “You're pretty morbid over some of the strangest topics, you know. This is almost as ridiculous as the time you casually mentioned how easily food can be tampered with under the right circumstances. Whether by magical tampering or outright poisoning…”

 

“It's an important thing to consider, especially when you're in a place where you're not familiar with.”

 

Misaki’s scent gained an edge of uneasiness to it. “So how come you like eating the food here so much?”

 

“I used poison-scrying spells regularly when we first got here, don't worry. But shortly after training started, I didn't really have the patience to do that. I just wanted to eat and sleep the exhaustion away, and by that point, I really didn't have much to be wary about.”

 

“Thank goodness I approached you first. You can be one of the most paranoid people I've ever met.”

 

Shuuichi smiled, finally opening his eyes fully. “In my neck of the woods, it's a desirable trait. It was one of the few things my mother seemed to be proud that she'd instilled in me. It wasn't something I could use against her; in fact, the less I trusted her and my father, the more desperate I'd be to leave.

 

“Or so they thought.”

 

He couldn't see Misaki from the angle he was lying at, but he could hear her adjust her position. “‘So they thought’?” she asked. “What's that supposed to mean?”

 

“I might not be on good terms with them, but I'm determined to put off marriage for as long as possible. I might be a pushover, but I'm not eager to be used as a bargaining chip for whatever schemes they're cooking up on a regular basis. As an only child, I'm a bit lucky that they haven't married me off already since I'm an Omega. They're probably looking for the most advantageous deal to pawn me off in.

 

“Or, if you want to take the current situation into perspective, they already picked one. And of course, them being their regular indecipherable selves, picked one of the most _outlandish_ choices that I could have ever thought they were even _capable_ of.”

 

He heard Misaki’s slow intake of breath. He couldn't fault her for it; his bitter tone throughout his little spiel had probably let her know that, yes, he was more than prepared to open _that_ can of worms. In any other situation, he'd wonder why he was bringing this up. But now, he didn't know, and honestly didn't care.

 

“Well, you have a point there. You're not the only one who was confused by their decision, that's for sure. They never had been upstanding members of the nobility, so their sudden complacency was something that nearly upended that particular Conference.”

 

That was something he hadn't really thought about. The entire reason he'd been blindsided when this entire situation had been brought to attention in the first place had managed to slip his mind.

 

Something was telling him that his parents probably had several reasons why they hadn't dragged him out to those Royal Conferences in the first place. If they'd had that plan in the works for long enough, they could have done that for obvious reasons. And apart from the plan, it had made sure he wouldn't have much idea what to expect in a situation like this.

 

Assuming he'd even been given a choice, he'd have felt overwhelmed and left it all up to them to decipher. It wasn't like he had changed all that much, but if someone had told him about everything that would happen if he'd chosen to… _not_ get married off, there'd be a good chance that he'd have declined.

 

Chronic laziness and apathy would do that to a person.

 

Although, he was sure that if that had happened, his parents still wouldn't have told him just who he'd gotten sold off to. And that would have reinforced his decision to do nothing, since he was getting to the gotten so sick of all of their talk of marriage, he'd been sick of hearing them talk about it. The news that he'd be getting married off would have actually served as a small relief. Finally, they would stop bothering him about it.

 

Really, he wouldn't have looked for an alternative by that point; he would have just asked them when he was leaving.

 

Such a _wonderful_ , **_caring_ ** family he had…

 

In hindsight, all their talking, or more accurately, pestering about marriage could have just been what they considered an advance notice. It was almost ludicrous to think about.

 

In fact, he was getting pissed just thinking about it. “It's completely ridiculous. So they're ready to give up their precious, delicate, lazy little Omega to one of the least agreeable, least mentally stable and universally feared tyrants in this age? And if they'd had their way, the only thing I'd have heard of the entire situation was ‘get in the carriage, you're going to meet the Alpha you'll bear pups with’ before they sent me off.” He didn't know if he should feel insulted or impressed with just how well they'd planned the entire disaster out.

 

This was the first time he'd really taken a good look at the situation that had landed him here. And the more he thought about it, the less sense it made.

 

If they were going to marry him off to someone cruel and powerful, he was sure that there'd be some entitled noble in the closer surrounding area who would have fit that criteria, provided they looked around enough. And from what he knew about the current political climate, their move had been just as good as either siding with the Empire or putting themselves up as potential lackeys.

 

He might not really look on his family history with pride, but the one thing he did know was that he was one of the very few cowards that the Sahara clan actually had. The rest of them were far less quiet and accommodating, according to what he'd been told and what he'd observed himself.

 

That begged the question: what the hell had they been trying to do with that entire scenario, anyway? It was an atypical thing for them do so, and it either meant that they were taking a risk or had planned this out.

 

In fact, scratch out the “risk” part. His family never took reckless risks that could get them caught; there were several good reasons for their widespread notoriety. So they had planned the entire thing out.

 

And just like that, Shuuichi's mind hit a wall.

 

Why in the world…?

 

He propped himself up on his elbows, trying to puzzle it all out. The most he could do was think over everything he'd thought of to get to that conclusion, and anything beyond the conclusion seemed to be beyond his comprehension.

 

Then he thought of something.

 

“Misaki,” he said, “if I remember correctly, the reason we were moved here was because we, along with everyone else who came over, was at risk for being targeted by Junko, right?”

 

“Yes, that's right.” She said the words slowly and deliberately, as if she herself was thinking about something.

 

“And my parents were the only ones who didn't immediately object to the proposition?”

 

“That's… also right.”

 

“Well, goddamn, they could have at least had the decency to tell me that they didn't care about me. What nonsense.” He flopped down, snuggling into the nest a little more.

 

“But telling you would imply that the cared enough to acknowledge you. And from the way they behaved, it was like they had been watching some sort of transaction take place,” Misaki said. Shuuichi heard the blankets shift as she moved around a bit.

 

“A transaction? Can you imagine it; I'm currency.”

 

Misalo snorted. “Very funny. You aren't!”

 

“Well, what am I then? A bargaining chip?”

 

“No.”

 

“An unneeded pest?”

 

“Not at all!”

 

“Then what am I?”

 

“A person.”

 

“If that's meant to be inspiring, you missed the mark.”

 

“You're your own person, is what I meant. You can be what you want yourself to be, basically.”

 

“Hmm… that does sound a little encouraging.”

 

“Just a little encouraging?”

 

“I'm not sure if I have all that much potential for much, really. It's encouraging, but my near-nonexistent achievement record leaves a lot to be desired. I'll… think about it.”

 

“I'll hold you to that.”

 

“Whatever. Good night.”

 

“Good night!”

 

Misaki shifted around a little, before seeing to find the most comfortable spot to settle down in. When she found it, she sighed.

 

Shuuichi closed his eyes, feeling at peace. It was all nice, quiet and--

 

Wait.

 

“Is it actually nighttime right now?” he asked.

 

“I… have no idea, actually. But the room has a window if you need it.”

 

Shuuichi sprang up from his lying-down position and looked around for the window. He soon found it.

 

The curtains had been drawn; that's why he couldn't tell what time of the day it was. That and the fact that he hadn't really been thinking about that before. So, in response to that, he reached out with his mana and opened the curtains, revealing the soft light of a new night.

 

Just looking at it made him feel less overwhelmed. He flopped back into the nest and adjusted himself a little before just lying there with his eyes closed.

 

It was nice to feel the moon’s energy near him. Even though he probably wouldn't wake up for his regular late-night practice, it was still nice to feel the familiar energy.

 

And with that thought, he fell asleep.


	30. Chapter 30

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shuuichi wakes up in a bad mood. Things somehow go downhill from there.

**CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE**

For some odd reason, despite the fact that he'd woken up in a soft, cozy nest along with someone he knew he could trust to an extent, he couldn't help but feel slightly off.

 

He'd slept well, and with the curtains open, he was sure that he'd gotten his fair share of moonlight. He'd even checked his elemental mana pool a few minutes earlier, and it had been just fine. Whatever was making him feel dissatisfied didn't seem to be external. If it had been, he was sure that Misaki would have already commented on it, seeing how blunt she usually was. However, she seemed to be just fine.

 

As a result,  he didn't bring it up. It would be unnecessary, and it would bring a conversation that would probably choke and die within seconds of starting. Nobody wanted to start the day with something like that.

 

Especially on a day that, for once, he didn't have to rush to start training almost as soon as he woke up. No, he'd gotten to take his sweet time before finally jumping into it, for once.

 

They still trained, because, naturally, Misaki was unable to spend a day without doing _some_ form of exercise or training. He wasn't sure if it was an admiral thing about her or just an excuse to go outside regularly.

 

Either way, it wasn't as if he'd be getting an answer.

 

Thankfully, that had only come after they'd spent some well-deserved relaxation time in the nest. All they'd done was make some inconsequential small talk and lounge around in the nest a little bit. Shuuichi would have been perfectly content to lounge around like that all day, but Misaki wouldn’t allow that.

 

No more lazy days where he would end up sulking in his nest and feeling vaguely unhappy and unsatisfied with himself. No, he had to be active and actually engaged with the world around him for once in his life. How _horrendous_.

 

The more he thought about how he’d spent most of his life, the more bemused and unhappy he became.

 

His parents hadn’t exactly made him do that, but had they just… let him? He really didn’t know, and by this point, he didn’t really care. He didn’t really know what had brought this up, but he honestly didn’t like it. It was making him feel unmotivated to do much after he’d finished training.

 

He didn’t even feel like eating much.

 

Misaki had noticed that he’d been acting a little out of sorts, and she’d asked him if something was wrong. Unlike last time, however, she had pressed on it.

 

A lot.

 

To the point that he’d actually got irritated with her.

 

He knew that he had no real reason to be such in a bad mood, and that he had even less reason to be angry with her, but he just wanted to be alone for a while. It wasn’t like he’d ever seen much of anyone apart from Misaki. Everyone else, thankfully, seemed to be taking much more interest in talking amongst themselves about something that he couldn’t care less about.

 

It would be considered strange that he wasn’t interested in looking for gossip, but he really just felt like lying in his bed and doing nothing all day. You know, the thing that he’d done nearly daily when his parents weren’t dragging him to social events that, in slightly paranoid hindsight, had probably been selected deliberately for who-knew-what reason. Or, more accurately, several reasons.

 

Several reasons that, for the life of him, he wasn’t interested in figuring out. What he wanted to do was shut off his brain and stop thinking entirely. It wasn’t like it was doing anything reasonable right now, so shutting it down would probably be a good idea.

 

And, unfortunately, he couldn’t find it in him to go to sleep, or read some random novel. In fact, most of the things he would normally do seemed undesirable for some strange reason.

 

So here he was, lying in his bed, looking up at his ceiling, wondering just what in the world he would do for the rest of the day. He felt he was in that strange state of limbo where he wanted to go to sleep, but couldn’t find it in him to actually go to sleep.

 

He didn’t like it. He'd never liked it, really.

 

But it wasn’t as if he could do anything about it, so his silent complaining was almost automatically rendered invalid. What a pity. Did anything that he chose to do _actually_ matter? Or was fate really just toying with him right now, reminding him that, no, his actions were mostly invalid.

 

What a pain.

 

He didn't even know what had brought this about. It could be his hormones going completely out of whack for a while, or it could just be random. He wasn't interested in figuring it out, so he just had to deal with it as it was.

 

Shuuichi sighed, closing his eyes for a few seconds. Maybe if he closed his eyes long enough, he could go to sleep. And even if he couldn’t go to sleep, he could at least get a little rest before any new bullshit was thrown his way.

 

The silence in the room was calming. The half-closed window also helped a little. It might not have been a perfect setup, but it was calming.

 

That was enough. For now, at least.

 

…---...

 

At some point, he'd fallen asleep.

 

Finally. It had been a nice, peaceful break from his mind going haywire over absolutely nothing without prompting, so it wasn't as if he was complaining. The problem was that it didn't last. 

 

He'd had no idea how long he had slept for when, out of the blue, he heard something. Something that definitely wasn't ambient noise, or something that his mind would make up just to fuck with him a little for no discernible reason. It was actually a bit annoying. And he needed to focus on it a little to actually identify it properly... 

 

It sounded like… tapping?

 

Against wood?

 

The taps were rhythmic, in a way that could have sent him to sleep easily if it didn't sound so close-by, or so completely foreign and unwanted. However, that begged the question of why this was happening in the first place. For the life of him, he couldn't figure out why something like that would be happening right now. It was actually making him feel a little put-off...

 

Not only that, but it didn't sound as if it would end anytime soon. Besides, it would be childish if he tried to pretend to be asleep, wouldn't it? And it wouldn't be smooth sailing for whoever was actually doing it, either. How long had they been doing that, anyway?

 

He had no idea.

 

But… the phrase “tapping on wood” seemed a little off. He felt as if he was missing something. A word.

 

What was it…?

 

He knew that he hadn't forgotten it; it was right on the tip of his tongue, but for the life of him, he couldn't seem to decipher it.

 

He opened his eyes, staring at the ceiling for a few seconds. Now that he thought about it, it sounded like it was coming from his door…

 

…oh.

 

The word he'd been trying to remember was “knocking.” That was a bit embarrassing… thankfully, it wasn't as if anyone would know that he'd messed things up so badly.

 

Could that even count as messing up? He wasn't sure.

 

He quickly realized that the knocking had increased, both in speed and in loudness.

 

It was less of the traditional “knock three times and wait” method and more of the “I will continuously knock on your door until you get up and answer it, you dimwit” method of knocking that the person seemed to be using. With how long they'd probably been waiting, he couldn't say that he blamed them.

 

He wondered who would be doing that. Kaito probably would have let himself in, and it wasn't as if Misaki would need to do something like that either. And apart from those two, he couldn't think of anyone who would do that, even someone who wanted to irritate him.

 

Mild curiosity flowed through Shuuichi's mind as he sat up, rubbed his eyes and yawned. Then he stretched slightly, before wondering what the time was.

 

It was probably a little strange, but he'd only just noticed that there didn't seem to be a clock in his room. An odd decision, and one that he didn't really know what his feelings should be regarding it. One one hand, it was familiar, because it hadn't been necessary. The most he'd needed to know had been the days of the week that he was most likely to be dragged out to some stupid social function or other.

 

(He'd never personally looked through any of the invitations he received. They were probably filled with a lot of weak insults that he couldn't be bothered with looking through, and they were meant for events that he had no real interest in. He usually just passed them over to his parents to pick and choose from. The most he did was acknowledge which clan seal was on the envelopes. He might not have had an encyclopedic knowledge on all of the clans in his province, but he could identify most of their seals if he needed to.)

 

(It was yet another of his useless skills.)

 

He glanced at the light from the window. There wasn't any sunlight, but he could clearly see that there was moonlight. He could be a little off, but it seemed to be around… early evening?

 

…

 

What?

 

The situation was either that he and Misaki hadn't woken up all that late, or that all of the early risings for training had thrown off his admittedly shaky perception of time.

 

There was also the option that he'd slept for longer than he usually did. And if he had, he could either blame that on the leyline incident throwing his sleep schedule out of whack, or he could pin in or something that just seemed to be part of his regular bad luck.

 

One of the reasons he'd stopped bothering much with magic practice all those years ago, apart from his parent's notable disinterest, was that it had a mild tendency of messing up his sleep schedule for a while. It seemed to come at random, too. Sometimes he wouldn't be able to sleep for some time, or he'd sleep through a day or two without meaning to.

 

It wasn't a common thing, but after the first… _ten_ times or so, it got annoying to have to either get woken up or forced to sleep. He wasn't sure why it happened, but he'd never really bothered looking into it. It wasn't like he had much of a schedule to work on at the time, so all dissatisfaction was purely personal. His training had gradually stopped, the episodes of random sleeping and alertness had stopped, and he’d forgotten about it all until now.

 

Funny how that worked.

 

And now he didn't know just how long he'd been out for.

 

He _needed_ to get a more reliable way of telling the time soon. He wondered how he'd get it, though.

 

It might be easier for him to just ask for one, but he could easily go the long route and scour his memories for that one spell that created a sigil he could place wherever he wanted and just tap it to get what time it was supposed to be. At any rate, if he remembered it later, he would have something to amuse himself with. For now, he had to answer the door.

 

The knocking had started to sound less like a human hand on a door and more like an annoying woodpecker that was trying to drill straight through a tree trunk by this point. If he paid too close attention to it, he might get a headache.

 

Just who _was_ this person?

 

He stretched, then slid off the bed in the slowest and most relaxed manner that he could muster by this point. Then he sprinted to the door and opened it as quickly as he could.

 

And then he got knocked on.

 

Literally.

 

The person rapped the middle of his chest with their knuckles around twenty times before looking up at him with a scowl on their face.

 

A scowl that the person’s dark purple eyes seemed to intensify. The same dark purple eyes that bore a passing resemblance to Kaito's looked up at him with what looked like a mix of incredulity and irritation.

 

The same eyes that belonged to the height-challenged necromancer who had nearly scared the living moonlight out of him the first time they'd met, and had continued to do so every single time they’d seen each other after the initial madness.

 

 _Kokichi_.

 

His brain seemed to freeze for a few seconds after the realization. When he could finally think again, he blinked slowly, unhappily realizing that, no, he wasn't having a bad dream and that yes, his chief tormentor had, for some unknown reason, actually come up to his door and started knocking. Considering his normal modus operandi, he happy that the necromancer hadn't, say, just dropped in from the ceiling or something.

 

(That _really_ would have sent him to his early grave. In fact, he wouldn’t just be sent there; he’d be forcefully teleported into it by such an event, he was sure of that.)

 

It took him a few seconds to realize that he should probably say something to mitigate the awkward silence.

 

Instead, he chose to give a half-hearted wave, probably looking like a shell-shocked child that had been instructed to say goodbye to someone that they didn't even know because of social graces they were unaware of. In his defense, his vocal cords were being extremely uncooperative, so for the life of him, he couldn't say anything to Kokichi even if he had wanted to.

 

Considering the circumstances, it was obvious that he didn't really want to do so in the first place.

 

“Well, hello to you too!” Kokichi's tone was chipper, but it had an almost acidic undertone to it. “What's the matter? Witch got your tongue?”

 

Shuuichi shook his head. He was still trying to figure out just why Kokichi had shown up, and so far, he was failing spectacularly at trying to decipher a reason.

 

“Aww, poor baby. Do you need a little booster to get your mind all woken up? Maybe this will help!”

 

Before Shuuichi could react, he saw something get tossed at him. It looked like a small pebble.

 

And that small “pebble” that burst into a cloud of sparkling dust that swooped to cover him in a glittering mist. It stayed in the air for a few seconds before it seemed to dissipate into his skin. Almost immediately, he felt more alert.

 

He blinked rapidly a few times, trying to process what just happened. This was some form of energy potion, he was was sure of it. But what was it for? Sure, it wasn't as he didn't like the feeling of alertness, but there wasn't anything that he needed to be alert about right now.

 

Right?

 

“Finally woken up?” Kokichi asked, bringing Shuuichi out of his thoughts.

 

“Yes, I guess. But why did you think it was necessary to do that? There's nothing that requires this,” Shuuichi said.

 

“If there was nothing necessary, please tell me why all of the rooms in this area are deserted.”

 

Shuuichi blinked. He opened his palm and quickly teleported the small glass slab into his hand. The blue and gold coloration brought a fleeting feeling of familiarity before he quickly started swiping it, navigating through the sections before it showed where he and Kokichi were.

 

…

 

The two of them really _were_ the only people in this area of the castle.

 

This part of the castle was, for some reason, completely deserted. When most people - himself included - would be going to sleep. And if they weren't sleeping, they'd at least be doing _something._ Socializing, usually. The silence within this part of the castle wasn’t normally this quiet. Even if most people were asleep, there would be a little background noise, not just this… silence.

 

His confusion seemed to spiral to new heights as he quickly recalled how to look over different areas. A few swipes later, he saw that most people were clustered in or around areas that were either closer to where the guards most often patrolled and places where there were slightly higher concentrations of magic. However, the people who were clustered together seemed to be defaulting to their normal gossiping cliques.

 

There was also the fact that everyone seemed to be firmly inside the castle. Around this time, people would mostly be lounging around the exits, or they would just be relaxing outside doing whatever they usually did. Now, they were clustered so far inside that they looked as if they were trying to avoid getting hit by something. Or, more accurately, as if they were trying to barricade themselves from getting attacked, while not actually doing that.

 

This was…

 

…something else entirely.

 

“What the hell is happening right now?” he asked.

 

“Maybe you'd find out if you weren't trying your best to fall asleep like a baby.”

 

“Hey!”

 

“Don't ‘hey’ me. Babies have a tendency to sleep through the day, you know? The problem is you picked a bad time to imitate them, as everyone's location probably shows.”

 

“Something important has happened? What?”

 

“You’re not getting the news out of me, Sleeping Beauty.”

 

“I'm not Sleeping Beauty, either!”

 

“Act how you’d like to be addressed sometime. It could help with any unwanted nicknames.” Shuuichi could tell if Koochi was doing this just to rile him up or if there was actually something reasonable behind it.

 

“Oh, really?” Either way, he wasn’t impressed. “Please tell me, o wise necromancer, what did I do to deserve being called ‘Sleeping Beauty’? I wasn’t even sleeping as far as I remember; I was _trying to fall asleep_. There’s a difference between the two. I don't have anything in common with the fairy tale either, you know.”

 

“You _do_ deserve to be called Sleeping Beauty actually,” Kokichi said, his tone chipper. “You haven’t come out of your room for the past two days, and looking at your hair and clothes, you’ve been sleeping for that entire time. And with everything that happened, you might as well have slept for a century.”

 

Shuuichi’s jaw dropped. “I fell asleep for _how long_? Two days? Oh, good grief…” He covered his eyes with his hand for a second, sighing. That wasn't good, was it?

 

“Yep! Two _entire_ days! The only reason you haven’t had a rude awakening is because your friend warded everyone else off. People quickly got occupied with other things, anyway, so it was a bit of a needless warning.”

 

“Well thank goodness for small mercies.” Then Shuuichi fully processed what Kokichi had told him.  “Wait, did you say that I was asleep for **_two_ ** _days_?”

 

“Yeah, this is the ending of the second day. If you want to be picky, you technically have missed two days since you've missed two sunrises.”

 

“Wait a minute,” Shuuichi said, “How do you even know that in the first place?”

 

“You're a prominent character around here. It doesn't take much digging to find out that you apparently shut yourself away in your room for two days. You weren't at any of your preferred places in the castle either, and to top it off, your friend trained alone.”

 

“Yes, but how do I know you're telling the truth? I don't know what day of the week it was when I fell asleep, so even if I fell asleep for two days, I wouldn't be able to tell by that. You could easily be lying.”

 

“Smart move.” Kokichi pulled out something from his pocket. It looked as if it was made of stone, and it it was shaped like a teardrop. A teardrop with a suspiciously sharp point. “I'll prove it to you. Just pick your finger on this and it'll do a quick scan of your body. You'll know how long it's been since you were last conscious.”

 

Shuuichi reached out his hand. “Just how is it going to be able to tell that? Is it going to analyze my mana fluctuations or something?”

 

“That's the basic explanation for what it's about to do. The more you sleep, the more erratic your mana fluctuations can get, and things like this can easily be traced through that. It's more reliable than just trying to scam people's aura fluctuations, anyway. Most people would have asked that before sticking out their hand, though,” Kokichi noted.

 

“I could care less about what others would do. I have too much on my plate for me to think of scrambling around and looking for a way to blend in.” Shuuichi pressed a fingertip against the sharp edge on the teardrop until the skin broke. Then he let it bleed freely for a few seconds.

 

Before pricking his finger on it, the stone had been a light gray. Now it turned into a darker gray, with a light gray band around the middle. In the middle, two words formed, both of them a deep red.

 

 **TWO DAYS**.

 

…

 

…for goodness sake.

 

Shuuichi sighed. “Fantastic.”

 

“I told you I wasn't lying.”

 

“I just had to make sure…”

 

“At least you're security conscious, unlike some people here.”

 

“With a family like mine? You could say it's a necessary skill.” Shuuichi took his finger off the tip of the device and curled his fingers into a loose fist. It would heal quickly, there was no need to worry.

 

The stone seemed to have absorbed the blood, so there wasn't much cleanup needed there. Kokichi cast what looked like a basic cleansing spell over it before pocketing it again.

 

“That’s an interesting way thinking about things. So you're saying that if you'd been born to a different family, there's a chance you would have taken what I said at face value without asking for confirmation.”

 

“I know more than a few people who would do that, even with clear indicators that what they were being told was false. The reason I didn't immediately dismiss you is because I have a terrible sense of time on normal days, thoughtless of on a day like this.”

 

“Interesting.”

 

“It's _almost_ as interesting as you randomly showing up at my door and telling me something went down while I was knocked out, then refusing to tell me what it was.” Shuuichi wasn't even trying to be subtle by this point.

 

Kokichi smiled. “You really want to know about it that badly?”

 

“Yes!”

 

“Then _guess_!”

 

Shuuichi wasn't even going to acknowledge the rhyming part of that. “Do I look like I’m ready to guess anything at all?”

 

“No, not really. I might be a necromancer, but you look like death itself on two legs!”

 

“Hey! I just got up from rolling around in bed for literal days, if you’re not shitting me. Do you really expect me to look ready to pose for a painting or something at this time of the day? Please, try and have some sense of realism for once.” So much for a call conversation… Shuuichi wasn't even sure why his anger had spiked.

 

“You’re one to talk about realism when there are times when you seem to be doing everything in your power to avoid reality.”

 

“I don’t _avoid_ reality. The problem is that the more intricate details choose to elude me.” Shuuichi shrugged.

 

“Or, translated, you’re too lazy to pursue those truths, so you go along with the excuse of ‘damn, I would have tried to get to it, but it ran away.’”

 

“...that sounds like something a hunter would say.”

 

“A hunter would have a better work ethic than you.”

 

The world seemed to stop for a solid minute as Shuuichi stared at Kokichi as if the necromancer in front of him had spawned a second head. If he didn’t know that the person in front of him had been sent in by the Royal Conference as an informant, he’d have slammed the door shut and flounced his way back to bed to start sulking.

 

If he tried that, however, the door would either be broken down, or Kokichi really would drop in through the ceiling. Both of those options were terrifying, so the unfortunate answer to everything was that, in spite of himself, he had to stand in front of the door and see if he could defuse the situation.

 

Or even just understand the damn situation in the first place, at this rate.

 

“Moving on,” Shuuichi said, skipping diplomacy and deciding to get straight to the point, “can you please tell me just why whatever this is is so important? I’ll find out later, so it isn’t as if I need to find everything out now. I just need a general overview of what happened and I'll fill in the details myself.”

 

“Changes are going to be implemented, and it’s going to be a miracle if anyone’s going to remember to explain it to you.”

 

Well then.

 

That was both abrupt and worrying.

 

Especially worrying.

 

“I… ah, don’t think I understand. Could you please… rephrase that?” he asked.

 

Kokichi didn’t look like he was having any of his stalling. However, he still replied. “Think back to when the Empire tried to infiltrate the kingdom. If something like that happened again, would you really want to waste your time and energy explaining the situation to someone who managed to miss the entire affair? Especially when, say, only around half of the true details of the case are known and you have to try and piece together what is fact and what is fiction? Because I sure wouldn’t bother.”

 

“You… have a point...” Shuuichi felt on the verge of remembering something. Something that had barely come up in passing during a discussion yesterday was what it was. But his brain was still having a hard time recalling exactly what it was.

 

“So you  might want to get up and find out what it is.” With that, Kokichi turned around and looked ready to leave.

 

It took a second for Shuuichi to piece it together.

 

“Wait, you want me to find out what the hell this is by _myself_? I know asked for at least an overview before I did anything, but this is starting to sound as if it's some way beyond my information-getting skills.”

 

“It's beyond most people's skills, you know? You might want to take a few minutes to think before permanently ruling everything out; you have an advantage that most people don't.” In a blink, Kokichi was gone. Probably by teleportation.

 

Shuuichi closed the door, his mind scrambling to find an answer to all of this. Yes, being tired probably had put a damper on his understanding, and it was clear that he wouldn’t have exactly been cooperative if Kokichi had tried to directly tell him what was supposed to be happening.

 

But finding out whatever it was meant to be by himself wasn’t precisely something he wanted to do. In all honesty, he didn’t even have to bother doing so. B. and he didn't have a choice here, and it was overwhelmingly clear that the odds were not in his favor.

 

It wasn’t as if he was even worried that he was alone; it was better that way. The less people he had to worry about, the better. The main problem was that Misaki wasn’t here. If it was taking her of all people this long to get information about the situation, it could potentially be serious.

 

And by “potentially,” he meant “definitely.”

 

With hwe wide social circle, it would be a breeze to find the truth about most of the rumors flying around at any given time. If things were so convoluted that everyone was still scrambling to decipher it after two entire days, it wasn't good.

 

Fantastic. Could the world not leave him alone to stew in his own vague misery in peace? Why on earth did he need something to do at a time like this?

 

Wait. What the hell was he thinking? Of course, he didn't need to do anything; that was obvious baiting. This was probably some sort of ridiculous situation that he'd dreamt up while sleeping. Dreams could be realistic, after all. So it wasn't surprising that he'd almost fallen for something.

 

But just what was that thing he’d been trying to remember? Everything before nesting was a little fuzzy for some reason. If he remembered correctly, the fuzziness seemed to start around the time he’d started feeling a little light-headed.

 

That had either been during, before or slightly after the long conversation he’d had with both Kaito and Misaki. The conversation that had somehow gone from the leyline to that portion of the wall in the castle at home that his conversation partners seemed to have strange hangups about.

 

Wait.

 

Oh.

 

 _Oh_.

 

He remembered now. The reason he’d overlooked it was probably because Kaito had tried to brush it off as much as possible. If he remembered correctly, he’d barely spent two sentences describing it.

 

Kaito had said something about having to watch someone get chewed out at a recent Royal Conference.

 

And for some reason, he’d left it at that.

 

…

 

…

 

Something told Shuuichi that the situation either wasn’t as calm as Kaito had made it seem, or that something had escalated between yesterday and today, and Shuuichi had managed to miss it completely.

 

Whatever the case, it probably had to do with the mild chaos that was happening right now, didn't it?

 

That meant that this entire fiasco couldn't be a dream. He never had dreams that were this logical. So, in turn, this meant that unless he wanted to attempt to ignore everything that had just happened and continue trying to go to sleep, or clean himself up and actually start looking for someone who would explain what was going on.

 

Shuuichi sighed, leaning against the door.

 

Yes, he'd been baited into this. He'd been blatantly baited into this. It was painfully obvious in hindsight. And in the end, he couldn't do anything about it except willingly going along with it.

 

How wonderful.

 

He still felt exhausted, and with the time being so late, it would be ridiculous to try and investigate anything. The best thing he could do right now was going to sleep and set out to try and tackle all of this nonsense early tomorrow morning.

 

...or maybe mid-morning. A little more sleep wouldn’t kill, right? And since everything had been going on for the past two days, it would be best to get more rest before head had to dive into something like that. Being late to catch gossip was a hassle on a normal day, but when something was apparently as severe as this, it was best to try and get as much of his nearly nonexistent assets as he could.

 

Rest was very important. He’d wrestle with his appearance tomorrow; he was too tired for that nonsense right now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *checks word count*
> 
> *stares*
> 
> With this chapter, this story is going to be launched into 100,000-word territory. I am simultaneously amazed and ashamed with myself, because, on one hand, I never thought I would be able to write so much for a single story in my life. Ever. On the other hand, holy shit, what am I doing with my life?


	31. Chapter 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shuuichi thinks over what little information he has, and connects a few dots. He also has an encounter with someone along the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: *stitching together around half of the things that happen in this chapter by either adding in formerly nonexistent lore or looking back in how the story is progressed* Is this how writing works???

**CHAPTER THIRTY**

After waking up, it had taken an hour to make himself presentable and straighten out his bed a little bit. Before he’d set out to start his miniature quest, he’d looked for everyone else’s locations. Once again, everyone seemed to be as far away from the visitor’s wing as they possibly could be, and were scattered around the castle in their typical gossip groups. Or so he assumed. He wasn’t really checking. 

 

The only people he actually paid attention to were Misaki, Amano, and Michiru. Naturally, the latter two were seemingly joined together by the hip, and they were in a different area of the castle from where Misaki was. Keeping what Kokichi said in mind, they were probably trying to sort through all of the gossip that was buzzing around. It must be a real pain if they were three days in and still trying to connect everything and see what was what.

 

After that, he’d set out.

 

And…  _ well _ .

 

He’d quickly found out that walking through the castle when everything seemed almost completely deserted was both a calming and strange experience. It wasn’t outright terrifying and it wasn’t completely benign, but it was a mix of the two that wasn’t sending him completely off the deep end.

 

The only reassuring thing about the situation was that it needed a bit of backward logic to affirm it. 

 

It was like the night when he couldn't sleep and had ended up strolling into Kaito's office, but slightly different. He'd known quite well that there were probably guards patrolling the area who were using invisibility spells that were probably fueled by the Heraxia stone that had been used to build the castle. Even though they'd been invisible, he'd known full well that he wasn't alone. It was common sense. It would have been a monumentally stupid decision to not have guards patrolling, especially during a time like this. 

 

However, he'd easily been able to shake off their presence and not think much of it. They might have been present but it wasn't anything that would make anyone feel like they were being crowded in with the sheer amount of people surrounding them. They could barely be sensed in the first place, so how many of them were there wasn't a concern that would cross anyone's mind. 

 

However, today was considerably different. And it was, unfortunately, quite apparent.

 

Maybe it was because it was still daytime instead of nighttime. 

 

Maybe it was because he'd already been nervous before he'd managed to get himself out of his room. 

 

Maybe it was because today seemed to be shaping up to be one of those strange and confusing days that was shaping up to be a mid-level disaster even before he'd actually gotten a chance to do anything.

 

Maybe it was because he was in a bad mood. 

 

Maybe it was all of those combined in some strange way. 

 

No matter what it was, he knew that what was happening right now seemed like the direct opposite of what had happened that night. 

 

The halls might have been empty, but Shuuichi was feeling as comfortable in them as he would be while watching someone pull out their own teeth. Which was to say that he  _ didn't feel comfortable  _ **_at all_ ** **.**

 

He felt like he was going to get pounced on at any second. The guards seemed to be  _ everywhere _ . Just walking through the halls felt like he was getting stared down and assessed by people who were just waiting to rip into him and tear him down. There were definitely more now than there had been that night, and this fact definitely wasn't helping his nervousness either. 

 

It was a few short steps below becoming overwhelming. And those steps were  _ exceptionally _ short. The sensation of having everyone's eyes on you was far from a welcoming feeling. He'd never felt this many eyes on him before, and the fact that they didn't have any ill intentions was still making him feel uneasy. 

 

(What a  _ surprise… _ of course it was easier to function when people preferred to voluntarily ignore you.)

 

It reminded him of his early years, specifically when it came to the composure lessons his mother had decided to drag him through. People who said that the glare of an Alpha was strong clearly hadn't had the pleasure of being stared down by their own dam as if they had committed an irrevocable faux-pas. 

 

Just thinking about it made him remember the feeling of his mother circling him, watching to locate any fault in his posture. Watching him, making sure he didn’t show any emotion. Monitoring him to make sure he didn’t move a damn muscle.

 

( _ Look straight ahead _ , he'd been told.  _ Don't follow me with your eyes or turn around. Keep your spine straight, your shoulders loose and relaxed. Don't show any discomfort. Look as if you don't care at all. And don't react to anything, even what in saying. Not outwardly, at least. Do you understand? _ )

 

He could almost remember the thought of being a small child, having to go through that. Not only had he needed to stand like that, but he’d also have to wear some of the most uncomfortable, heavy clothes that his mother had dug out of the wardrobe. On bad days, he’d have to balance a book on his head to make sure he wasn’t slouching. The normal outfit for those occasions was a long-sleeved, stupidly-layered dress with an equally uncomfortable collar, gloves, stockings, and some of the most uncomfortable shoes known to mankind.

 

And the room would be almost unbearably hot. He’d have to stand there for some of the longest fifteen minutes in his life before his mother finally walked in, and as she circled him, the difference in temperature between miserably hot and uncomfortably cold had made him want to cry.

 

And he’d been forced to go through that until he managed to stop reacting entirely to that sort of situation. Stop reacting  _ outwardly _ , at least. 

 

That had managed to stick for the rest of his life. It applied to most situations, because he ordinarily wasn’t bothered enough to warrant him talking. However, if he was provoked enough, had just been in an argument, or was already carrying residual anger, he was much more likely to make retorts and generally lose his composure.

 

(Over the past few months, he’d had to undergo that more times than he’d prefer to admit. Not like it mattered, but… actually recalling this wasn’t doing much to help his confidence right now. At all.)

 

His habits of either staying silent or lashing out seemingly without any discernible pattern hadn’t helped his reputation either, he was sure. The one good thing that came from it was that people often didn’t bother with him unless they had an ulterior motive, or just wanted someone easy to pick on. As they’d gotten older, each of those circumstances had become less and less frequent. Probably because they'd found better ways to entertain themselves. 

 

He wasn’t about to just forget those years of torment, whether it was cooling off or not. He wasn’t about to fall at their feet with thankfulness because they’d finally gotten in into their thick skulls that he wasn’t  _ that _ fucking stupid.

 

It was a miracle that he managed to keep the amount of composure that he maintained when he was around them, if he was being truthful.

 

That wasn’t to say that he was  _ completely  _ composed, but he managed to contain at least some of his anger when he tried.

 

(“Tried” was the keyword.)

 

On a more positive note, he'd found that most uncomfortable situations could be defused by standing as straight as he possibly could, staring straight ahead and trying to channel the harsh glare he'd seen so often from his mother. Depending on what he was wearing, he'd either fold his hands in front of him or behind him. 

 

(It had worked surprisingly well when he'd been younger. Most small children didn't want to bother trying to tease someone who didn't seem to care at all about whatever weak insults they were slinging around. It was when they'd started learning how to craft insults that actually had a lasting effect on people that he'd started becoming more actively hostile to them. From there, things had gradually escalated until the mess that had grown into what was called Stoneca’s newest social circle had finally solidified itself.)

 

(It wasn't like he had much right to call it a mess, since his family was one of the main troublemakers, but it didn't take a genius to know that at least some aspect of the way Stoneca functioned was warped. It was just that he wouldn't really be able to pinpoint anything wrong with it. Not only had he been brought up in it, but he wasn't exactly knowledgeable on that sort of subject. Really, as long as it didn't implode on itself, he was completely happy and content with whatever nonsense he'd have to deal with. As long as he had the option to ignore at least half of it, he would live. Perfection was a myth, after all.)

 

In any case, remembering that reminded him that it wouldn't be the best idea to look like he was nervous. It wasn't like he needed any help with figuring out where he was; unlike yesterday, he was trying to stick to places he was familiar with. 

 

Besides, due to security reasons, it would be unlikely that he'd be able to see where Kaito was on the little glass slab device. That would be a ridiculously obvious loophole that anyone with half a brain in their skull would be able to figure out. It could also give any potential intruders a clear target for one of the most important people in the castle, and that would be a terrible idea.

 

And since he didn't feel interested in drilling information out of the people in his province, he really had to hope that he'd find Kaito soon. It was unlikely that most people would have noticed - or cared - that he wasn't present, so it was probably in his best interest to avoid all of them until he'd gotten the information he needed. Then he'd loop back and see if he could find Misaki and compare the information they'd both gotten. It seemed like it was the easiest and most sensible thing to do at this point, really. 

 

At any rate, it would be better than Misaki having to spoon-feed him the information when she was probably still processing everything herself. Besides, if she was still detangling and sorting all of the information people were giving her for what would be three days now, this meant that there were multiple rumors going on about whatever it was, and that left the possibility that someone, or some  _ people _ , had deliberately scrambled the information beforehand and were leaving it all to wreak havoc on all that heard it. 

 

Or, translated, they didn't want people to know exactly what had happened to set off all of this nonsense in the first place.. 

 

That… was worrying. 

 

He was a bit of a gossip enthusiast, yes. But it wasn’t because of some sort of rush he got from discovering people’s secrets. Yes, that was part of it, but the main reason he liked gossip was that the best way for him to get information. 

 

In something like this, there was a possibility that the truth was buried somewhere in the mess. If not the full truth, then a small part of the truth. Deceit was best done with an element of truth to it, even a small amount of truth. The problem was that if they had already gossiped so much that it was taking a considerable amount of time and effort to try and figure out what was what, that meant that not everyone was relying on whatever version they'd been told. 

 

And the begged the question of  _ where  _ they got their information from. Anything like letters would ordinarily be a risk, but there were spells that allowed them to be sent between a few people with no external interference. Ordinarily, they would be considered a mild security risk, but that only happened in a place where magical channels created for things like that were left unsupervised. Such spells usually needed to take energy from the place they were being created, so if they were left unsecured, that could lead to an easy access port for all sorts of invaders.

 

However, the Luminary Kingdom couldn’t be that incompetent. It was obvious that every single one of those channels was heavily monitored in order to avoid something disastrous occurring. He couldn’t directly confirm that those were in service, but he knew that some of the people from his province would have started whining if they weren’t able to remain in contact with some people from back home. Since they hadn’t broken a window with shrill accusations of that, it was a good idea for him to assume that those channels were still active, and being used regularly. 

 

And talking about external communication… communication orbs  _ did _ exist. And again, any magical channel they used for those was using them was probably highly monitored as well. 

 

Added to that, it was unlikely that most of the people here just used them to contact their parents. If they happened to have friends that hadn't been at risk and thus hadn't been part of the entire relocation process, they probably spent some time communicating with those people too. 

 

… 

 

No wonder Misaki was having trouble. Most people were probably already trying to detangle that mess, so she was reduced to part of an entire confused system by this point. 

 

Shuuichi held back a grimace. If whoever had done this was as firmly rooted in tricking the masses as he suspected, there was a high chance that this was being done deliberately. Whether it was an attempt to stifle curiosity on the subject or to make people pass over it automatically, it had imploded on itself spectacularly. 

 

How wonderful. 

 

He sighed. 

 

Then he heard someone snicker behind him. 

 

Well, it wasn't like--

 

Wait. 

 

_ What _ ? 

 

Shuuichi turned around, coming face to face with someone he was around seventy percent sure he'd seen somewhere before. They’d probably been in the background, not doing much, so he hadn't actively registered them.

 

He wondered why. 

 

It took a few seconds for him to realize that it probably meant that this person was one of Amano’s several sycophants. Or at the very least, they had hung around Amano enough for Shuuichi to form that impression. Whatever the case, Shuuichi wasn't impressed. 

 

They had long, dark green hair that was in a heavy-looking braid that went halfway down their back. They had light, watery-looking purple eyes, and noticeably sharp incisors. The reason he knew the last fact was because they were smiling as if they were a cat that had seen its dinner.

 

For obvious reasons, he didn’t like that expression very much.

 

They smelled, surprisingly, like apples and smoke. Their scent was a little faint. The scent seemed too weak to logically be an Alpha, and a bit too muted to be that of an Omega, so he would assume that they were a Beta.

 

But regardless of dynamic, there was something vital that he needed to know about this entire situation.

 

“What do you want?” His tone was probably a few shades below “friendly” and getting dangerously close to “outright distrust.” Some people might think that he was overreacting, but with what he’d managed to figure out, he wasn’t in the best mood.

 

(And, of course, the fact that he couldn’t just ask Misaki because not only had he managed to sleep for two days, but also because she had a lot of other problems to take care of, and he wasn’t about to add another one to that list.)

 

(This person had picked one of the worst times to bother him, and he’d be damned if he didn’t make his disdain obvious.)

 

“Aww, I just want to talk,” the Beta said. Their tone sounded a little patronizing.

 

Shuuichi wasn’t buying their excuse.

 

“Do Amano and I look similar in any way, shape or form? Go bother him, not me, why don’t you.” 

 

“Eh…” They shrugged. “Ordinarily, I’d be doing that. But right now? With what’s happened recently? I'd rather not. Unlike your  _ industrious _ self, it took me a while to realize that nobody knows what the hell they're supposed to be doing.”

 

“Ah,” Shuuichi said, nodding. “You've broken free of the hive mind, I see.”

 

The Beta laughed briefly, snorting with amusement. “Hive mind? That's one way to look at that miniature collective.”

 

“And far as I'm concerned, that’s the  _ only  _ way to look at it. Now, back to the original question:  _ why _ are you following me?”

 

“Ooooh, I can feel the hostility radiating off of you! I like that. It’s quite nice to see that you have a spine. A metaphorical one, of course. One of character. Everyone can see that you have a physical one.”

 

Shuuichi was suspecting that this person was either doing this on purpose or that they genuinely had a few screws loose. He didn’t have time for this either way.

 

“Why are you following me?”

 

“Because I want to.”

 

“That's not a proper explanation. Why are you following me?”

 

“You're not going to stop asking me until I answer, huh?”

 

“Nope. And I ask again, for what is something around the fifth time by this point,  _ why are you following me _ ?”

 

“Because you're one of the few people I've seen who's actually looking for the straightforward answer. Everyone else who’s figured out everything's a mess has either started taking a nap or is waiting for the controversy to die down a bit before jumping in to get the answer.”

 

Shuuichi raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, right. It’s been three days; they’re probably close to getting to their conclusions, anyway. They might not be top tier geniuses, but they can’t be that stupid. And as for ‘straightforward answer,’ isn’t that what they’re trying to find?”

 

They stared at him for a few moments before smiling crookedly. “Not really. It's just the best method of information-gathering that they could use without breaking the standard politeness protocols.”

 

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

 

“You're a special case is what it means.”

 

“I don't like the sound of that,” Shuuichi said. “But it's nice that you’ve broken your fake pleasant act.”

 

They scoffed. “Is that what you think? This is my normal personality.”

 

“Good for you.”

 

“Thanks.”

 

They were silent for a few seconds. Shuuichi broke it quickly.

 

“What do you mean by ‘special case’?”

 

“Most people wouldn't react well to news that their own parents were more than ready to sell them out. I hate to break it to you, but even though you have a Stoneca-assigned target nailed to your back, now you have a shield around you.”

 

“Shield?” It took him a few seconds to process that. “What are you trying to imply here? Even though I don’t know, I can already tell that I don't like it.”

 

“Well, would you really have the place to argue with someone that the prince hasn't blatantly ignored? Not anyone can go and walk in on a prince at some ungodly time in the morning because they can't go to sleep, you know.”

 

Shuuichi stifled his surprise. He had left Kaito’s office at a time where some people were out and about, though he hadn’t taken notice of them. People would probably have put two and two together quickly, so it wasn’t something that was completely out of the blue.

 

Instead of directly addressing anything the Beta had said, he decided to play dumb. “And your point  _ is _ ?”

 

“You’ve basically been bumped up a few ranks by proxy thanks to the special attention you’re getting. The reason you’ve been having such a good time is that nobody knows the limits of your temporary immunity. And no one wants to overstep their boundaries in the process of finding it out.”

 

He rolled his eyes. “So they’re waiting for me to fuck up?”

 

“Basically,” they said, shrugging. “But for now, you’re probably the best person to actually find out what the hell’s going on. Everyone’s been getting conflicting news sources, and even though your friend might not have anything to do with it, he probably knows who does.”

 

“You’re acting as if I’m even interested in that.”

 

“Of course you’re not. But even if you’re self-centered, can’t you spare a little thought for Misaki? She might want to know about that, you know! Hint, hint!”

 

On any other day, Shuuichi would have either been tempted to smack the person on the face or simply walk away. However, today as not such a day. Was everyone and everything trying to call him out? Because that was definitely what it was starting to seem like at this point.

 

He found himself remembering all too clearly the day Amano had, for some unknown reason, come right at him with some mild character assassination. It had boiled down to Amano not wanting Kaito to trust him for some reason? 

 

Putting that into the context he’d just been told, if even half of what the Beta had said now was true, then that… could have been a last-ditch effort to see just what they could get away with. The incident a few weeks later had probably been their form of petty revenge. And that had ended up with him eating leisurely while watching them turn on each other, so they’d probably thought better about trying anything like that after that miniature disaster.

 

And it was definitely true that he was probably breaking around half of the etiquette rulebook his mother had requested that his aunt had to shove down his throat whenever he did something wrong. And by “aunt,” he meant his maternal aunt. The one that his mother had taken a liking to sending him off to whenever he messed up in general when he was younger.

 

(His other aunt - the one who had married his paternal uncle - had been the one who was nice. That was probably the reason why she didn’t seem to visit him often after he’d started growing up. It was a pity.)

 

He didn’t feel like listening to all of this anymore.

 

Shuuichi blinked slowly. “I guess you have a point.” 

 

Then he began to slowly reach out with his magic for a place that was a short distance away from where he currently was.

 

He heard the Beta start to talk again, and he quickly tuned it out. He had to find a good place quickly… 

 

Almost as if fate was throwing him a bone, he found it quickly. When he'd double-checked it, he closed his eyes for a few seconds, took a deep breath and opened his eyes. And before the Beta could ask any questions, he teleported.

 

And even as he passed through the sub-realm between the two areas, he started running. 

 

Most people advised that inexperienced teleporters shouldn’t try that, but he didn’t think he could count as “inexperienced.”

 

Just because he was surrounded by people that inexplicably had the power to catch him off-guard all the time didn’t mean that he’d lost the few skills he’d managed to gain earlier in his life. It just meant that he didn’t have enough time to implement them in most situations here.

 

This situation, however, was one that didn’t fit the standard disorientation situation he’d often been shoved into. 

 

Running through the sub-realm between the portals guaranteed that you would have a magically augmented speed boost for the next couple of feet, and that could mean the difference between getting roped into nonsense by some idiot and getting to watch the chaos unfold from a safe distance.

 

Or it could just let you get away from people you didn’t like. In this situation, that was exactly what he was trying to do. Hence the typically unadvised “running” technique of escaping this Beta.

 

As soon as he found himself on the familiar section of the hallway, he was off. The most anyone would see for the next few seconds would be a blur, and while they were busy scratching their heads or staring at empty space, he would be able to find someplace to hide so everything could blow over as quickly as possible. 

 

Yes, he was running toward the kitchen he needed to get a snack to keep his energy up, anyway. Probably something simple, like a fruit. 

 

As long as it wasn’t an apple, he’d be fine. 


	32. Chapter 32

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I ran this chapter through Grammarly this time; sorry I forgot to do that for the last one. Also, as usual, around half of the magic lore in this chapter was pulled out of thin air!

**CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE**

In the end, he’d ended up getting a tangerine.

 

(Even if the thing with apples hadn’t come up, he probably would have stuck to citrus fruits. He’d always had a slight preference for those anyway.)

 

And he’d decided to try and ensure that he didn’t run into anyone this time. The main reason he didn’t travel this way very often was that he didn’t usually want to avoid someone so badly, but for today, he would make an exception.

 

The last thing he wanted or needed in his life right now was seeing that Beta again, or running into anyone else who had taken up his view of things and was waiting around for someone to find out what had happened. So, in order to avoid that, he was taking a small risk.

 

Unsurprisingly, the sub-realm between the portals didn’t seem to be very different than it had been in Stoneca. It was still a nebulous, swirling mass of energy that was comforting to look at and be in. The only thing that had changed was the feeling of the energy, and that was understandable. Different places had differences in magical energy, so it was highly unlikely that two places would have the exact same type of energy flowing around.

 

Not only was there a difference in energy, but there was also a difference in how the portal system was set up here. Back home, it had been…

 

Well…

 

The only word he could think of to describe it was “labyrinth.” It didn’t seem to be sorted by any known logic, and it certainly wasn’t cooperative to anyone trying to get through them. Portals leading to rooms that were only a few doors apart in the normal world could have their portal doors on opposite sides of the sub-realm back home.

 

And everything seemed to scramble itself right after his parents had come back from one of their many trips. He’d always need to visit the sub-realm to figure out where everything had gone. The scrambling never seemed to have any patterns, either. It was strange to think about. He’d often gone there with loose-leaf parchment when he was younger, to map everything out as best as he could.

 

(And with their spectacular timing, he sometimes had to go through that nonsense right when he was recovering from heat. The most recent example of that nonsense was the entire Royal Conference fiasco, and thinking about it made him feel tired. He sometimes wondered what the hell they’d been thinking when they put that shuffling spell in place.)

 

(Even though there was a high chance that they didn’t notice or care at all…)

 

(It wasn’t like they even noticed or cared about most regular things, after all. They had more _pressing_ issues to look out for most of the time. All sorts of schemes that he didn’t know about; things that happened right under his nose without his knowledge, thanks to his own apathy… Just thinking about it was making him feel even more tired.)

 

Luckily, everything seemed to be properly arranged over here. For now, anyway. Things had probably gotten shifted around thanks to the recent incidents, but things seemed to have at least a pretense of organization. All he could do was hope that this current arrangement wouldn’t need to get shifted around any time soon.

 

For now, he was just walking around and looking around at the rooms he could see. He couldn’t see every room in the palace. It was understandable since there could be important information being discussed in some of those rooms. And that wasn’t even starting to consider general privacy issues either.

 

A good chunk of the rooms probably weren’t accessible through this sub-realm.

 

And there was a one hundred percent chance that what he was seeing right now could be a limited view made exclusively to cater to his tastes. He could see a portal that led to his room, for example. It wouldn’t make sense for everyone in the castle to be able to access it, now would it? He also couldn’t see anyone else’s room because - surprise, surprise - he needed nothing to do with them.

 

He could also see some portals leading to areas where he and Misaki usually trained at. The kitchen was there too, obviously. And there were also a few areas where he often went to which were there.

 

He could also see some places that weren’t places he regularly visited. They were general areas that most people would need to take note of, kind of like a generic set of recommendations.

 

Ironically enough, they took up most of the space.

 

He didn't really get out much, but he didn't need to be told that, now did he? Especially not so blatantly…

 

Ah, well. There was no use thinking over it, now was there? It didn't matter, and he was just looking through it while trying to avoid as many people as possible. He didn't need to get disgruntled by something that mattered so little, now did he? He couldn't be that petty.

 

And after the generic recommendation areas, there came the regular socializing areas. Or, translated, where most others from his province tended to congregate.

 

There was… a good reason why he wasn’t going to bother much with those areas. A reason that he was tired of thinking about. From there, he mostly tuned out those areas, only glancing at them to see if there were people he recognized who looked like they were having a hard time.

 

Thankfully, Amano looked a little frazzled. He was sitting near the front of the room he was in, a few of his cronies surrounding him while he looked at the mild chaos that seemed to have taken the place over. To say that he looked both tired and unimpressed would be an understatement.

 

Shuuichi couldn’t help but feel a little happy at that. What put a slight damper on it was the fact that he quickly noticed Michiru standing behind Amano, her arms crossed and her eyes looking over the confused room of people with an unreadable expression. To anyone who wasn’t from Stoneca and didn’t know their relationship with one another, this would look like a bodyguard faithfully protecting their master, even though there didn’t seem to be any imminent danger approaching. Most would probably be appreciative of her work ethic.  

 

The problem was that they were far from that sort of idealistic pair. They were in the same damn place in the social strata, and there wasn’t anything going on between their families that would prompt her to perform such behavior. And in spite of that, there she was, acting as his strong, silent bodyguard.

 

Contrary to what must rumors would have people believe, they didn’t seem to be mates. Amano was the kind of person who would flaunt that sort of nonsense. Besides, it wasn’t like their families would have any objections to such a union. He put it up to some pact they might have made between the two of them or something similar.

 

It wasn’t something that he didn’t think of often, mostly because he couldn’t be bothered to figure out why. It wasn’t as if he could scrounge up any information about it, so there wasn’t much point over puzzling about it.

 

He looked over a few other portals and soon came across something else which made him stop. The Beta he’d encountered earlier was talking animatedly with Misaki in another room. It was obvious through their actions that they knew each other before this, so this was interesting. Misaki did navigate social circles easier than he did, so it was probable that she’d met people that he didn’t really know or care about.

 

But this seemed a bit like a surprise. Most people would feel that it was strange that he and Misaki had started interacting in the first place, so he knew that there was a bit of hypocrisy in this. It wasn’t as if something like this was completely random, but he didn’t expect someone who was part of Amano’s little clique would want to interact with the person who had randomly started hanging out with the child of one of the most infamous families in the province.

 

Maybe they’d known each other before all of this, or maybe the Beta was one of the very few members of Amano’s regular followers that wasn’t constantly following him like a lost puppy on a leash. It was a little interesting, but probably not something he’d really mull over. It was interesting, but not something he’d really have to use.

 

At least, he hoped he wouldn’t have to use it. He was just fine with interacting with Misaki alone; merging anyone from her friend group would either be tedious or plain impossible, and he wasn’t ready for that sort of headache.

 

He sighed again, wondering why simply thinking of that was making him feel tired. Today was just… an off day for him, he guessed. He’d only been within the sub-realm for a short while, so he hadn’t lost much time. He should probably just choose a random hallway and continue the search before he really lost track of time.

 

(It was sheer luck that time within the sub-realm seemed to be at least a little synchronized to time within the normal world. Back home, he’d made a habit of avoiding the sub-realm within his house because things seemed to move significantly slower in there than in the normal world.)

 

(Luckily, he usually had a lot of time to burn, so it didn’t normally impact him. Add that to the fact that he rarely had to go into it, and it ended up being something that was just a little inconvenient for him. Not very nice, but something that he had to do in case he ever needed to make an emergency teleport.)

 

(The last thing you needed when you were trying to bail was stalling long enough for someone to yank you right back into the situation you were trying to escape from. People could and would “break into” the sub-realm in order to chase someone and take them back to wherever they were trying to get away. It was a rare occurrence, and one that he thankfully hadn’t been subjected to, but it was one that he desperately wanted to be able to avoid as much as possible.)

 

Life was more complex than it seemed most of the time, and the main reason for that was because of people. He was lucky that what he’d discovered wasn’t something else that was earth-shattering.

 

He still needed to find Kaito and ask about the fiasco that had tossed everyone else into a cycle of gossip, after all. Having anything else on his mind would turn into a lot of unnecessary hassle. He’d already wasted enough time; he couldn’t afford to mull over something else for the next decade.

 

He looked over another selection of portals, scanning them for an exit point that could be a good place to resume his search. He was quickly stopped in his tracks where he saw one glowing a faint blue. It was so faint that most people wouldn’t see it unless they were deliberately looking for it. Since it was his magic, his eyes were dragged to it quickly.

 

This… had to be a joke, right? Of all the times for it to act up again, it was now?

 

He looked at the hallway, trying to see if there was anything special about it that could have set off his magic. He got no dice there; for all intents and purposes, it was a completely normal hallway. The only good thing about it was that it was far from the places where some people were congregated while waiting for the others to sort themselves out.

 

In fact, if he looked a little closer, it seemed close to where he’d seen Kaito the last time they’d met. There was a chance that he could run into him with less difficulty, and without wasting as much time. He’d wanted to take it easy earlier, but maybe it wasn’t an approach that was best for a situation like this.

 

Ah, well… it wasn’t like he could turn back time. It wasn’t worth obsessing over. Besides, even if the glowing turned out to be a fluke, he might at least have a higher chance of finding Kaito. His scent was easy to track, after all.

 

The decision was made, and he didn’t have any other options. He might as well step through the damn thing and at least get closer to the end of this little trip. So he walked through the portal, and found himself in the hallway.

 

He looked around a little, trying to pinpoint exactly where the hallway was located. He didn’t remember ever going through it, but he could remember seeing it from a short distance. That meant that it was probably close to the route he’d taken to get to Kaito’s office that night. If he kept walking in the right direction, he’d probably be able to trace his way to the other pathway.

 

At least something good was happening.

 

And with that, he started walking forward, keeping an eye out for anything familiar. He quickly became preoccupied when he finally started seeing a few familiar places. Soon, his surroundings got familiar enough for him to feel a little reassured. He was also picking up on Kaito’s scent again. He’d probably be able to find Kaito soon if this mild amount of luck kept on going.

 

Just the thought of that made him feel a little happy. He didn’t know why, but it still made him feel satisfied in spite of himself. As long as it wouldn’t lead to something stupid, it would be fine. And it probably wouldn’t.

 

It was fine.

 

Why was he even thinking of this, anyway? How stupid…

 

He sighed and shook his head again. His mind was so scattered today, and he couldn’t understand why. Maybe he’d take a nap after this, or straight up go to sleep. It might help a little. He couldn’t think of everything else that would help, so it seemed like a good idea…

 

Would it be a good idea, though? Seeing what happened earlier today, it might take a while for him to fall asleep, and he didn’t feel like that would really work today. His thoughts could start wandering again, and that could trap him in a cycle of wanting to sleep but not being able to, and that would lead to him feeling even more off and unhappy, which could probably lead to--

 

His thoughts came to an abrupt end when he collided head-on with someone.

 

To be specific, he walked right into their chest.

 

To say that it was strange was… an understatement. The thing was that something felt familiar about this. He leaned forward and sniffed a little, trying to catch the person’s scent.

 

…

 

_What?_

 

He blinked a few times, then took a few steps backward and felt as if he’d been rooted in place. He’d recognize that scent rather easily by this point, and right now, he felt at a complete loss for words.

 

He’d… somehow walked right into Kaito without noticing it. How far into his thoughts had he fallen? Good grief. The only solace he could find in this situation was that Kaito looked almost as disoriented as he felt.

 

An uncomfortable silence settled over them for a few seconds before Shuuichi broke the silence.

 

“Hi,” he said.

 

Even though it was a single word, the way it sounded made him want to smack himself in the face. How could a single word contain what sounded like a deluge of airheadedness? It sounded like one of the dumbest things he’d ever said, and for the life of him, he couldn’t understand why.

 

“Hi,” Kaito replied.

 

Apparently, he wasn’t the only one who had frozen up.

 

“How’s your day been?”

 

“Fine.”

 

“Mine’s been… okay.”

 

“That’s good.”

 

“I hope so.”

 

Kaito shrugged. “It’s either good or it isn’t.”

 

Shuuichi thought for a second. “It was good, I think. Or at least okay. That’s a synonym for good, right?”

 

“Mm-hmm.”

 

“Then yes, it was good.”

 

“That’s nice.”

 

The conversation halted for a few seconds, and Shuuichi remembered the reason why he’d been looking for Kaito in the first place.

 

“Do you know that everyone seems to be confused over something?” It might have been a completely graceless way of introducing the topic, but at least it was breached.

 

“...yes.”

 

Hmm.

 

Something about Kaito’s reply made Shuuichi feel as if he might have pulled up the topic too quickly.

 

In fact… looking a little closer at Kaito, he looked tired. Not completely exhausted, but he looked as if most of his patience had been exhausted. It would be best if he got to the point.

 

It wouldn’t be a good idea to screw this up, and he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to work up the nerve to try this a second time.

 

“There are multiple versions of the story going around, just within the gossip that people in my province have managed to get from outside sources,” he said, almost as if he was in a rush. “All of their sources can’t be intercepted because they are heavily monitored by source-detection spells and mild information filtration, correct?”

 

“...yes. It wasn’t specially placed either. It’s a standard policy whenever you have to handle classified information on a regular basis,” Kaito said.

 

Shuuichi nodded. That made a lot of sense; royalty couldn’t afford to have any of their precious information leaked, could they? “Well, I have a question for you.”

 

“Then ask it.”

 

“Does the Royal Conference have anything to do with this information scrambling?”

 

Obviously, Kaito’s expression didn’t change. “That’s an interesting take on it. How’d you come up with it?”

 

“I remembered something you said yesterday. You spent the recent Royal Conference seeing ‘someone getting chewed out.’ And seeing that news about an incident had come out, it was easy for anyone, even someone like me, to put two and two together. It doesn’t need any knowledge of complex political intrigue; it could be figured out with a simple knowledge of social tactics.”

 

“But why would rumors be spread in the first place?”

 

“They’d be spread to cause confusion and probably to draw attention away from the incident itself. If people were too busy calling others out for an inaccurate version of the story, people would start to get confused about just what was happening, and then others would start calling it a hoax. Things could also get blown over by a false statement from the people who were supposedly ‘affected.’ Then we’d get some minor anti-gossip hysteria before it all blew over.”

 

“And what would be the point of doing that?”

 

“To make it seem like the Royal Conference is handling things just fine. Something happened, and it unsettled the authorities of the Royal Conference, didn’t it?”

 

Kaito inhaled sharply, before sighing. “Was it that obvious?”

 

“I’m not sure. I kind of had to have it pointed it out to me, and I half-bullshitted myself through that explanation anyway. But it’s strange for so much confusion to happen over one incident.”

 

“That’s because it's not only the rumors from the Conference that are floating around. Other people have… personal agendas that they’re trying to keep to. It’s only coincidence that both they and the Conference have the same motive.”

 

Shuuichi frowned. “This sounds serious. And strange. Seeing what happened here to prompt the emergency shuffling of at-risk nobles, it makes no sense for anything else to be hushed up.”

 

Kaito sighed. “What happened… didn’t happen around here. It happened in an unexpected place, and that’s what they’re trying to cover up.”

 

“Why?”

 

“If one of the most stable places suddenly becomes a target of the problem that almost caused havoc here, do you really think that anyone with common sense would want that information to be released and really wreak havoc?”

 

Shuuichi swore that his heart fell into his stomach. “Are you saying that…”

 

“...the Enoshima Empire threatened a kingdom in another region, yes.”

 

“What?” Shuuichi’s mind scrambled to find an explanation for this. “Are you serious? How? Why?”

 

“Telling you how would just make you even more unsettled. As for why? Currently, the Conference has no idea.”

 

To say that was threatening was an understatement.

 

Shuuichi opened his mouth, about to ask another question. Before he could, however, Kaito shook his head.

 

“It wouldn’t be a good idea to talk about it here. Someone could come across us, and there’s a high chance that they won’t have good intentions,” Kaito said.

 

Shuuichi nodded, looking behind himself briefly. “That’s… true, I guess. I’m a bit under the weather, so I wouldn’t be much good at making sure no one would sneak up on us. And you’ve probably said enough out here… if someone was listening in, they’d have a goldmine to tell the others.”

 

“Don’t worry, nobody was listening in.”

 

“How do you know that?”

 

“Try and pay attention to your surroundings.”

 

Shuuichi did, trying to assess the hallway he was in. His eyes widened as he realized just what was going on.

 

They were absolutely surrounded by guards. In fact, it would be impossible for anyone to get close enough to overhear them without giving themselves away or intimidating the guards. It was unlikely that an invisibility spell would help here, either.

 

Shuuichi looked at Kaito. “You… have a point. So where are we going?”

 

“My office sounds like the best choice here. Nobody would be able to cross the security over there, believe me. That, and it might be best to let the number of guards around here thin out a bit before someone thinks of trying something, or starting a rumor.”

 

“Mm-hmm.”

 

“Well, let’s go.”

 

“Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to final exams, I might not be able to update the week after next week. I'm talking about all my stories here, not just this one. Depending on if I lose access to my phone and laptop early enough, I might not even be able to update next week. 
> 
> It depends on how things might pan out, I suppose. This probably isn't important at all but I felt like saying it. Sorry.


	33. Chapter 33

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The conversation happens.

**CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO**

Shuuichi hadn’t been able to stifle his sigh of relief when Kaito closed the door. Even though he didn’t know at least half of the runes which appeared on the door as it closed, he knew that it was unlikely that anyone in his province would be bothered to try and break through all of them.

 

It only took a short amount of time for he and Kaito to sit down, but they didn’t start speaking immediately. 

 

Kaito had to sort through some things on his desk; a few papers, a communication orb, a few books, and a glass slab. It was larger than the one he’d been given when he got to the castle. While the one he had was small enough to fit in his hand with ease, Kaito’s was the size of a small book and was as thick as a small stack of papers. From what little he could see on its surface before Kaito put it away, it was obvious that it had different uses than his own did. It looked like there was a lot of information on it.

 

He wondered why for a few seconds. Then he remembered the situation at hand.

 

Almost unconsciously, he moved his chair a little closer to Kaito’s desk. He’d noticed right when it became awkward for him to move back, and at that point, he gave up. It wasn’t as if it would make a difference, right?

 

Right.

 

After Kaito finished rearranging the things on his desk, he looked up. He didn’t seem fazed by the fact that Shuuichi had moved a little closer, so that was good. 

 

Again, they didn’t talk, but they just stared at each other for a little while. Looking closer, Shuuichi could see that while Kaito looked tired, he didn’t look completely exhausted. His eyes held a slightly glazed look to them, and he looked like he’d spent a little too much time arguing with people on something.

 

Shuuichi wondered how he looked. He’d been able to clean up well, but would it be obvious that he’d slept for two days? Or would it be obvious just how…  _ strange  _ he felt? He hoped not. However, he knew that life wasn’t always kind...

 

Then Kaito smiled. It startled Shuuichi a little, since it seemed unprompted.

 

“What’s so amusing?” he asked.

 

“The way you were looking at me.”

 

Shuuichi sat up - he hadn’t even known that he’d leaned forward, good grief! - and felt the heat trying to rise in his cheeks. He sucked in his lips, trying to prevent his face from contorting into some sort of embarrassing expression.

 

He gulped before speaking. “What do you mean?”

 

“Your eyes were darting over my face as if you were trying to map it out.”

 

“I was just… observing.”

 

“Observing, huh?”

 

“Oh, stop it. We’re in this room alone, remember? I might as well look at the most interesting thing in the room, you know.”

 

“I’m the most interesting thing in the room? I’ll take that as a compliment.”

 

Shuuichi rolled his eyes. “Don’t let it get to your head, Your Highness. I’m sure several suitors have told you the same thing.”

 

“Sure, they might have said it, but you’re one of the few who isn’t dripping with arousal when they’re saying it.”

 

Shuuichi couldn’t help but snicker at that. “So there are people that desperate in the world? Oh for goodness sakes, just how repressed were they?”

 

“Very.”

 

“Why am I not surprised? Some people these days are fucking ridiculous.”

 

“I don’t think they’re doing or getting enough fucking, no.”

 

Shuuichi laughed. It quickly dawned on him that this conversation could be Kaito’s way of trying to avoid the upcoming conversation. Despite that, it was a good distraction. One that he’d want to continue sometime later.

 

When he recovered, he spoke again. “That definitely is true. But you know this isn’t what we’re here for.”

 

Kaito shrugged, not even looking a little bit guilty. “With the way we froze up earlier, I thought it would be best to try and break the ice before diving into deep water.”

 

“Irrelevant; I can’t drown.”

 

“Yeah, I g-- wait,  _ what _ ?”

 

“I said I can’t drown,” Shuuichi repeated. When he saw the shocked expression on Kaito’s face, he put a stop to any potential side conversations. “How I know about that isn’t important. We can talk about it later if you want. But we kind of have something to address, remember?”

 

“Alright,” Kaito said, looking a little doubtful.

 

Shuuichi sighed. He couldn’t let another awkward silence seep into the situation again; they wouldn’t be able to get anything achieved otherwise. “Well, first of all, how did the Empire issue the threat to the Musiqua Kingdom? Was a spy sent into the servant ranks just for the sake of delivering that message? Or did they try something else?”

 

“They tried something else. Specifically, they sent a letter straight to Sayaka Maizono.”

 

“Maizono…” Shuuichi had to wrack his mind for a few seconds.  “She’s the princess of that kingdom, correct?”

 

”Yes, she is.”

 

“So Junko leaves that kingdom alone for years, then decides to wreak havoc by sending a letter? What did it say? It was a threat, wasn’t it?”

 

“You  _ know  _ I can’t tell you the specifics.”

 

“But was it an outright threat or not? I’m not interested in the finer details; if I just know the general information, I’m satisfied.”

 

“It was a subtle threat, and nobody knows what to make of it. The West Region is on edge, and most of the kingdoms there are implementing more security parameters.”

 

Shuuichi shook his head. “Are they being sent reinforcements? If I remember correctly, the Musiqua Kingdom and a few of the kingdoms surrounding it are better known for their arts than for their military prowess.”

 

“They are, don’t worry. It’s just being kept as quiet as it possibly can, and they’re limiting information to the other regions to avoid any mass panic.”

 

“Are you really sure that all this secrecy is needed? It seems a bit overblown.”

 

“To put things in perspective, when Junko decided to make an attempt at expanding her harem, the uproar was so heavy that it took a considerable amount of time for everyone to be assured that no, no one was planning on actually handing people over to Junko like that. 

 

“And to this day, we still have to reassure some people that yes, everyone is safe.”

 

“Just how bad  _ was  _ the initial uproar?” Shuuichi asked. Sure, he’d been immediately affected by it, but he didn’t know the effects it could have had beyond his small portion of the world.

 

“Do you remember how quickly gossip spread when we left Stoneca? The way people were crowding around the roads when we'd barely started leaving?”

 

Shuuichi grimaced, barely suppressing a hiss. Oh, hell,  _ nothing  _ could be worse than that… 

 

“Imagine that, but worse.”

 

“Worse?” Shuuichi repeated. “How much worse?”

 

Kaito smiled wryly. “Multiply it by a factor of ten.”

 

Shuuichi blinked. “Can you give me a better explanation before I start imagining doomsday scenarios?”

 

“Gladly. Imagine the chaos of people rushing out of their homes. But instead of them running to catch a glimpse of something that they shouldn’t be seeing, imagine that they’re trying to get information. They’re not running to the streets, they’re running to and fro to each other’s houses. They’re trying to get as much information about Junko’s proposition as well as the rundown on the people she’d selected.”

 

Shuuichi shook his head. He didn’t have the most vivid imagination, but he could imagine this far too easily for his personal liking. And he had a sinking feeling that this wasn’t all.

 

“That isn’t all, is it?”

 

“No. While all of that is happening, they're split into two factions: the ones who are eagerly awaiting the next piece of information like starving dogs, and those who are utterly terrified.”

 

Shuuichi gulped, and found that there was far less saliva in his mouth than there should have been. “Just how…  _ scared  _ are they?”

 

“Most people are utterly terrified of this happening either to them or their family members. Those who are privileged enough to do so start bombarding the Conference with pleas to do something about this situation, to not just let this fly past them.”

 

“And for those who can’t?”

 

“There are people who are ready to hole up and pray that the situation is defused in a timely manner with as few casualties as possible. There are others who are already planning on how they could try and escape, worried about whether or not they could get picked if Junko decides to make another proposition like the one that was currently circulating. And then there are people who are yelling to the high heavens about how the current state of the society was the only reason why something like this could happen, and how urgent reforms need to take place.”

 

Shuuichi didn't want to know what sort of expression his face was in at this point. Ignorance was bliss, and he had no idea what he was going to do with this information. He didn't know whether it was the fact that he was paying attention or if Kaito was just that good of a speaker, but he'd almost been able to  _ hear  _ those people going absolutely crazy. It was sobering to think about. The amount of frenzy that must have been in the general atmosphere after that… 

 

He couldn't help but count himself lucky to be such an isolated person. Ha had no idea how he would have taken it, not with the way he'd broken down when Kaito had broken the news to him. 

 

It was funny. Sadness had hit him like a tidal wave, but all he could feel was icy cold fear spiraling in his chest and weighing his stomach down. 

 

And if what happened in the West Region got out… 

 

…

 

He didn't even want to think about the aftermath of that. Just thinking of what had happened in the past was making him feel as if he was alternating between an uncomfortable, prickly cold and an uncomfortable amount of warmth. It was as if his skin was trying to melt and freeze at the same time, and it was a very uncomfortable feeling. 

 

And combined with the fact that his mind felt as if it had been scrambled, it was safe to say that Shuuichi was not having a good tune of it. Not at all. 

 

He looked up, and the sympathetic look Kaito was giving him made his stomach feel as if it was getting weighed down even more. 

 

“I… I can't tell anyone about this, can I?”

 

“Without them relating it to their friends, both here and elsewhere? I doubt it would be a good idea.”

 

Shuuichi felt as if his insides were slowly being replaced with wet sand. “A good idea? Kaito, please tell me something.”

 

“What?”

 

“You just told me all of that. Do you think that was a good decision?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“How are you so sure I'm trustworthy? How do you know I won't do something to compromise this situation of strict secrecy? Hmm?” He couldn’t explain why a part of himself seemed to feel that this situation was too surreal to be true. He couldn’t explain the sudden spike in fear that was threatening to build up in his throat.

 

“Are you… sure you want the answer to that?” Kaito asked.

 

“I’m pretty sure I already know it. I just need some external confirmation right now.” 

 

Kaito’s expression shifted from sympathetic to worried, and Shuuichi didn’t know how to react to that.

 

“Please. Just… tell me the reasoning behind this. As I said, I just want to hear it from someone else.”

 

“Wel, overlooking your background, your social circle is… almost non-existent, to say the least. Factoring in your background, it's going to be hard for people to trust you, even if they have to depend on you for information. And for an extra bonus, some of them might think that you, or just your family in general, might have something to do with it.”

 

The laughter trickled out, thin and unstable. Shuuichi could feel the sweat covering him now, a thin layer of unpleasant moisture. “So, to put it bluntly, I'm untrustworthy and unreliable. What a position to be in.”

 

It… was true. He couldn’t deny that. But that fact, combined with what he’d been told? It… wasn’t… pleasant.

 

At all. 

 

His skin seemed to be alternating between uncomfortably cold and unbearably warm, and his mind seemed to be switching between acceptance and unhappiness. He felt his hands curl into fists, and all he could bring himself to do was look down at the desk.

 

It wasn’t that this was hard to digest, but… it was. And for some reason, it made him feel extremely uncomfortable. He wondered what he looked like right now. A lukewarm mess, he assumed. Not completely disheveled, of course, but he was some way away from it.

 

“Shuuichi, are you feeling alright?” Kaito asked.

 

“I'm fine.”

 

“You don't look fine at all. Are you sure that you're feeling alright?”

 

“Considering the situation? I'm downright fantastic, thanks for asking.” 

 

“Shuuichi,” Kaito said, sounding worried. “Are you  _ sure _ you're feeling alright? You look like you're about to throw up.”

 

Shuuichi huffed. “Don't worry, I won't. I’ve barely eaten in the past three days; there isn't anything for my system to pass back up in the first place.”

 

“What do you mean that you’ve barely eaten in the past  _ three days _ ?”

 

“I mean just  _ that _ , Kaito. I was asleep for two of them, and I barely managed to snag a tangerine before getting here. The energy is wearing off, I guess. It's nothing serious, don't worry.”

 

“How did you fall asleep for two days straight?”

 

“No idea, actually. As far as I know, it's either hormone imbalance or magical fluctuations. It's probably the second one.”

 

“That sort of thing is normal for you?”

 

“No. Not now, at least. But it was when I was younger. Apart from sheer lack of interest and no one pushing me to do so, the occasional sleep imbalances were what pushed me away for doing much with my magic. It gets tiring to get woken up constantly, you know?”

 

“I assume it would.”

 

“It was, I assure you.”

 

“But how did you even  _ know  _ you'd been asleep for two days this time around? Who told you?”

 

“Kokichi. He was the one to wake me up, actually. He gave me a little insight into what had happened while I was asleep, and l managed to gradually piece things together in my way to find you.”

 

“How would he have known you were asleep in the first place?”

 

“Misaki found out first, and told everyone from my province to back off. That might have been talked about a little, so he could have picked up on it through that.”

 

“And how did you find out about that?”

 

“Someone else from my province told me; I don't know their name. I just know that they seem to be a Beta.”

 

“And that's all you know about them?”

 

“That's all a person can pick up on when someone randomly sneaks up on them as they're walking, you know. If you expected a more in-depth analysis, I apologize.”

 

“You don't need to apologize, don't worry. This entire situation sounds overwhelming.”

 

“It  _ is _ . Really, if there is some sort of deity looking down on our lives, I’d like to ask them why they thought this was a good idea in the first place.”

 

“You’re not the only one who has a bone to pick with them.”

 

Shuuichi winced. “Yeah… I won’t mince words, you don’t look as if you’re at your best either.”

 

Kaito snorted. “That’s being polite. I’ve had to deal with being one of the very few voices of reason trying to keep people from going absolutely ballistic over this situation, and just finding out everything that led up to this point wasn’t an easy task.”

 

Shuuichi couldn’t help the smile that overtook his face. “So, which is worse to deal with: screaming nobles or screaming royalty?”

 

“One of them can and will shut up if someone of a higher rank than them simply shows up. The other one is the highest authority in the land, and feels entitled to make their opinions heard, no matter what anyone else thinks.” Kaito looked exhausted just by saying that.

 

“And how many of those people did you have to deal with?”

 

“Over ten. And I had to deal with them at once.”

 

Shuuichi snickered. “You poor thing.”

 

Kaito shook his head. “To say that it was exhausting was an understatement. My ears were ringing by the time they’d all been convinced to shut up.”

 

Shuuichi felt his upper body try to plaster itself to the back of his chair. “There are those sorts of people who hold positions of royalty?”

 

“Don’t let Kyoko, Kokichi and I deceive you; the rumors about other royals our age throwing tantrums and acting like entitled brats are true in some cases. Letting the sources of those rumors group together for any reason doesn’t bode well for the other people involved.”

 

“Does Kokichi count? I mean, neither you nor Kyoko seem to take joy in being completely and utterly unpredictable, so that might not be the best comparison…”

 

Before Kaito could answer, Shuuichi heard something break.

 

He looked at Kaito. 

 

Kaito looked back at him. 

 

Shuuichi turned around, looking for anything that looked as if it could have broken. He didn’t see anything. He turned back around, feeling vaguely threatened.

 

Kaito looked a little unsettled as well. 

 

“Should we change the topic?” Shuuichi asked.

 

“Probably,” Kaito answered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, it's been almost a month. I have no excuse for this, I know.
> 
> What happened was that I needed to figure out the plot. Again. By some miracle, I managed to figure out... something. For now, anyway. I might need to take another break to figure out the plot because I've realized that this story is becoming less of a cohesive story and more of worldbuilding elements crashed together that is somehow managing to pretend to be a story.
> 
> I know my characterization is... questionable, at best. What I want to know now is if this story is getting too convoluted. I feel that it has been, and that combined with the size of this isn't a good thing. If you guys want to comment, could you try and tell me if the story still feels connected, or if I've really gotten off the rails?


	34. Chapter 34

**CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE**

Their conversation took a few detours, and by the time it had ended, Shuuichi was feeling significantly less unnerved. Kaito was good at making the conversation shift to a different topic whenever things seemed to be getting too tense, and Shuuichi wasn’t sure if it was just a natural ability or a skill he was deliberately putting to use.

 

Whatever it might be, he definitely appreciated it. 

 

It didn’t seem to be just for his benefit, either; Kaito had started to look less and less stressed as the conversation went on. Sure, they were probably using the conversation as a way to delay the inevitable, but it wasn’t as if someone would be able to interrupt them.

 

As soon as someone with enough authority was involved, most people in Stoneca would quickly discover the ability to swallow their complaints and become compliant. That was the only good thing that came from a place that was so constantly hypocritical… 

 

The real problems would arise when he left. 

 

When he wasn’t with Kaito, he was going to become the human equivalent of a rabbit hopping into a den of foxes. They could easily have broken into his room to try and find a trace of where he might have gone, or they could be lying in wait for him, just waiting for him to leave Kaito’s office and get close enough to their hiding place so that they could make him tell them the news that they were probably desperate to hear.

 

Misaki might have been able to keep them at bay while he was asleep, but now he was awake and had shown initiative in getting information, she wouldn’t be able to do much, if anything.

 

And even if they hadn’t put two and two together, that Beta could have easily told them. Sure, they said that they knew Misaki, but Shuuichi knew he’d seen them hanging around Amano a few times. There could be some form of informant nonsense going on there, but who said that Misaki was the only person they were reporting to?

 

Unless a person was getting paid a stupid amount of money to only give the information they found to the person who’d hired them, they would probably be selling the information to other people as well. 

 

Not only that, but despite the recent incompetency of Amano and his cronies, they were well-known back home for being the people that you didn’t want to cross if you could help it. Traveling away from their normal environment was probably putting a strain on how efficiently they could operate.

 

Besides, it wasn’t as if there was much reason for them to try much. Amano’s half-assed attempts to start drama had been defused, either by Kaito or Misaki, so he wasn’t likely to bother Shuuichi directly for a while. 

 

The problem wasn’t the ringleader, but his troupe of performers. The entire group was petty, but anyone who wasn’t Amano would be more likely to try using cheap tactics. Not only that, but he couldn’t be completely sure that Amano wasn’t planning on pulling some new form of bullshit.

 

What the Beta had told him earlier came back to mind.

 

It was obvious that Kaito had taken a liking to him, and because of their pride, everyone else wasn’t about to try doing the same thing. Why would they bother picking any sort of competition with someone that they ordinarily couldn’t be bothered to care about?

 

Between Kaito and Misaki, he’d become immune to most of their nonsense. Back home, he wouldn’t have been able to ignore them with this much ease. They’d all been here for… how long had it been? 

 

Shuuichi frowned. He’d lost track of how long they’d all been here. The fiasco with the Empire had happened around the two-month mark of their stay, so this was probably either still within the second month or slowly entering the third month.

 

Either a sixth or a fourth of the year had passed, and they’d had enough time to get into three related minor catastrophes, recover from two, and get stuck in a third one.

 

Shuuichi frowned. When had his life become so…  _ busy _ ?

 

“Is something wrong?” Kaito asked.

 

“No, not really. I’m just... thinking over how much has happened. It’s a bit ridiculous, looking back on everything.”

 

“Life doesn’t always make sense,” Kaito said, shrugging.

 

“That’s true, I guess. A more immediate concern I have is that, well… I’m not all that keen on having to toss myself to the wolves when we’re done with this conversation. I won’t have much time to avoid them without raising more suspicion.”

 

Kaito hummed. “That’s true.” Then his expression shifted a bit. “Do you feel as if anyone is going to try anything shady?”

 

“Not really. Ever since we got here, they’ve been less… aggravating. And if Amano is being sensible, I should only have to worry about the low chance that one of his cronies want to try something. I should be fine… they’ll probably just send someone to talk to me and make that person relay the news to them.”

 

“That’s good.”

 

“So what are you going to be doing once I leave?”

 

“Sorting out the information I have and getting ready to endure yet another session of screaming, placating and planning out what the Conference will do next.”

 

“Well, I wish you good luck with that.”

 

“Same to you.”

 

At that, something seemed to click.

 

The conversation they’d been having finally seemed to have come to a stop, and with that, he and Kaito started going back to doing what they were actually supposed to be doing. Kaito started rearranging his desk, and Shuuichi got busy with the process of seeing himself out.

 

Shuuichi stood up and stretched before turning to the door. Delaying this confrontation further would probably be a bad idea, and he wasn’t about to start giving them any more license to start forming theories.

 

When he opened the door, he looked around. The last thing he wanted or needed was to run into the person before he’d gotten time to prepare himself. In fact, he might just teleport as soon as he stepped out; he already knew what state the castle was in, and he wasn’t keen on experiencing that tension again.

 

He stepped out, making sure to close the door behind him. He looked at his surrounding carefully once more before stepping into the teleportation sub-realm. 

 

This time, things seemed to be a lot less slow and hazy. In fact, he was able to find his room relatively quickly. It was probably because he wasn’t trying to hold himself together while feeling completely drained. Speaking of which…

 

Part of him felt that it would be a good idea to take a nap after everything had been concluded. He’d earned some form of reprieve from this nonsense, and even though he’d barely eaten, he didn’t feel hungry. Sure, he’d probably regret it when he woke up, but that wouldn’t be a very pressing issue.

 

Besides, the last thing he wanted or needed was to get interrupted while doing anything. They would be able to tell where he was as soon as he walked through the gateway to his room. Currently, all he was doing was looking at it.

 

He wasn’t sure if he really wanted to put the target on himself so quickly, but with his luck, they’d posted a sentinel somewhere close by. He wasn’t about to look and see who it was, but they had probably done that. He already felt uneasy; there was no reason why he should make himself even more uncomfortable.

 

With that thought in mind, he walked straight into his room, ending up right in front of the door. To be specific, he was facing it.

 

He wasn’t sure if he was meant to feel amused or bemused by this. Feeling amused would probably take up more energy than he currently cared to muster, so he settled on being bemused as he stared at the door, listening to everything in his vicinity.

 

It didn’t take long for him to hear hurried footsteps that stopped right in front of the door. That was unsurprising.

 

What was surprising was the fact that the person knocked. 

 

And all they  _ did  _ was knock. It wasn’t close to the constant, annoying knocks that Kokichi had used to wake him up, thankfully. However, it was odd in its own way. It was the standard, polite “three-times-then-pause” sort of knocking.

 

However, this person wasn’t just doing it once, then stopping and waiting for a response.

 

They were doing it, waiting for two seconds, then doing it again, seemingly in an endless loop.

 

“It’s open,” he said. 

 

Part of him knew that it would make more sense for him to just open the door, but another part of him was convinced that the best thing for him to do would be to simply let the person open the door by themselves. 

 

No audible contact was made by the door for the next few seconds.

 

…

 

So they were just going to stare at it, or something?  _ They  _ were the ones invading  _ his  _ privacy, so he had no real obligation to open the door. If they weren’t going to open it, the two of them were just going to stand there, and he felt fine with that. 

 

Well, either that was going to happen or they’d turn tail to get someone else to do it.

 

And as if he predicted it, he soon heard footsteps leading away from his door. 

 

How ridiculous. However, he couldn’t say it was completely unexpected.

 

Within seconds, he heard footsteps coming in his general direction, and these ones sounded heavier than the ones that had just scampered away. Not heavier as in “feet stomping in anger,” but more along the lines of “my disappointment is immeasurable.”

 

The door opened swiftly, and Shuuichi found himself face to face with the same watery purple eyes of the Beta who had startled him earlier in the day. 

 

For a few seconds, there was silence as the two of them just sized each other up. It was as if time stopped for a few seconds just to let their brains catch up with what was happening.

 

Then Shuuichi blinked, and the Beta flinched as if they’d been startled. And within a few seconds, the Beta broke the silence.

 

“So… you just… stood here? In front of your door?”

 

“Yes?” Shuuichi wasn’t quite so sure if it had been a good idea to just stand there after all… 

 

“You know that you scared her off, right?”

 

“Scared  _ who  _ off?”

 

“One of Amano’s more faithful sycophants. I was meant to be the backup, just in case she chickened out.”

 

“Well, it looks like you did your job well.”

 

“Technically, I wasn’t supposed to do anything but help her relay the information that she was able to get.”

 

Shuuichi had to restrain himself from asking why. Making two people come to deliver the information was a bit overkill, but discovering the truth for something that had come out of nowhere and successfully scrambled everyone’s information networks wouldn’t be something that they could take lightly.

 

And that wasn’t even factoring in the fact that it was being delivered to them by someone who was viewed as… unsavory. Someone unsavory who was going to fulfill their expectations by giving them false information. 

 

(Except for the fact that he wouldn't be lying in an attempt to save his own skin or just to spite them or confuse them further. But it wasn't as if they'd believe that he was going to be doing something like this for their own benefit. Not like he could blame them; he was naturally selfish. It wasn't as if any of them were  _generous_ , but his own selfishness was different from theirs. They were selfish to protect their own little group. He was selfish so he could keep himself out of any unnecessary confrontation.)

 

(The same personality trait, used for two different things.)

 

Part of him wondered why he'd reconciled himself to lie so easily. It was probably because of the fact that there was, quite literally, no other option that he could take. A semi-palatable lie that would just cause some more confusion before ultimately getting resolved was better than a truth that would unleash the consequences of everyone's worst fear coming true.

 

He just had to hope that he'd be able to deliver the message convincingly. He had few talents, and acting wasn't one of them.

 

It was time to get it over with. “So, I’m assuming that the small talk is finished?” Shuuichi asked.

 

“Yep.” The Beta stared at him, making it evident that they weren’t planning to move from this spot until he told them the information they'd come for.

 

Showing any sort of hesitation would be an absolutely terrible idea right now, so Shuuichi tried to keep any and all reactions to a minimum. It wasn’t as if he was going to formulate a complex lie, but it would take a little time for him to figure out the right way to deliver this one. Quick thinking wasn't his specialty, but he could probably come up with something... 

 

“Well,” he started, “it’s not a pretty story.” A weak start, but it wasn't as if someone who'd received this sort of news would be blabbing it out without any forethought. He could play this off as trying to collect himself if he was questioned later...

 

“Oh, really? I couldn’t tell.” The sarcasm was dripping from the Beta's voice like water from a broken tap. But they weren't rushing him. Either he was doing well, and they were letting him compose himself, or they were trying to catch him in the act of lying.

 

...maybe telling them straight up wouldn't be a good idea. Some more misdirection might do well right about now...

 

He sighed, bringing his hand to cover his mouth briefly. “It’s uglier than you’d think. And it's... more than a bit difficult to process."

 

The Beta looked at him searchingly, then held their arms akimbo. "Are you trying to pad the truth or something?"

 

"I don't know what you're talking about." Shuuichi had to put effort into not sounding offended. "But if you insist on getting it out of me so quickly, can I ask you a question?"

 

"Ask away."

 

"Do you remember that old story about the boy who cried ‘wolf’?” And there went the Beta's first and last warning.

 

Their eyes narrowed. “What.”   
  


Shuuichi continued. “And do you remember that little rumor storm that happened a few years ago about… what’s her name… Ritsu? The blonde Beta? The one that made her parents send her away?”

 

The Beta looked as if they couldn’t believe what they were hearing. “The one that was proven to be untrue only _after_ her father had threatened to disown her around six times over?”

 

“Except for the fact that this time, the person or people who started this one hasn’t been officially found.”

 

"'Officially’?”

 

“There  _ is  _ one person in particular who could benefit from increased chaos. However, linking it back to them could be a challenge.”

 

“And this person is…?”

 

“The person who got us all sent here in the first place.”

 

The Beta blanched.

 

Shuuichi took the chance to continue. “The problem is that there are so many versions of the story, so it’s a difficult task to try and stifle them. Things should be cooling down soon, and there’s going to be a lot of damage control that’s going to have to be done on this. I can only hope that not too much energy has been… wasted on this.”

 

“‘Wasted’?”

 

“Well… there’s no other way to describe it, right? It  _ is _ just a fake situation made to stir up unease. So, as a result… any effort put toward it that isn’t actually trying to defuse it  _ will  _ turn out to be wasted.”

 

The Beta scoffed. “That’s one way to put it. But tell me, just how did that end up taking so long for you to get out of the prince?”

 

Shuuichi pretended to not understand the implications that she was trying to pin on him. “I was disoriented, for one. I can say that your surprise visit in the halls earlier didn’t help me much either, _thank you very much_. And on top of that, I wasn’t the only one struggling to process things. Apparently whatever he was doing before I stepped in was draining.”

 

“You do know the Royal Conference exists, right?”

 

“I do. However, it's not really my place to talk about it. Besides, it’s rather obvious that they’re the ones trying to do damage control for this disaster in the first place, so I saw no need to mention it.”

 

“But, logically, it shouldn’t have taken that long.”

 

“Have you ever had to listen to a conversation that was between someone who’s trying to become functional after they just woke up and a person who’s hell-bent on running circles around the actual topic? It was like that. But somewhat worse.”

 

“Not to mention the possibilities that could have arisen from the pheromone tango, right?” the Beta asked.

 

Once again, Shuuichi decided to not acknowledge the subtext the Beta was trying to pin on him. Was it just him, or was the Beta being more rash?

 

Outwardly, he shrugged. “I assume so."

 

"You 'assume so'? You just got back from there."

 

Shuuichi decided to be a little less polite. "Might I remind you that I'm still trying to process the fact that the matter that you've all been trying to detangle is the result of some overblown distraction tactic? Not to mention the fact that I just learned about it last  _night_? You've all had time to process everything in between this madness, but I've had to process the problem and its solution within _hours_. I apologize for not being superhuman."

 

The Beta said nothing.

 

Then Shuuichi heard something scuttle in the distance. After a few seconds, he heard something fall. The 'something' let out a short wail, then a surprised squeak before running off.

 

He looked at the Beta. The Beta looked back at him. Then they shrugged.

 

"It's not my fault that they're all curious about that."

 

Shuuichi blinked, processing what the Beta had said. Then he gave them a flat look.

 

The Beta took the bait. “Sorry about that." They shrugged. "Well, I have to thank you for this. Maybe some of the others will be able to calm themselves.” And with that, they left, closing the door behind them.

 

As soon as they started walking away, Shuuichi walked across his room and collapsed into his chair. Thankfully, it hadn’t been as stressful as he’d thought it would be. He just felt tired, and glad that he wouldn’t have to endure the aftermath of everyone discovering the ‘truth’ about the situation.

 

It probably wouldn’t go over well, but it would be better to have everyone exploding into feelings of irritation and fleeting anger before things slowly went to normal thank to have everyone losing their minds thanks to fear over what could happen next.

 

Most people in Stoneca were pessimistic, and the result of something like that being proven true would be… disastrous. People would start imagining even worse scenarios, and although a heightened sense of security was a good thing, it could easily turn into rampant paranoia, which would spiral into outright terror. And from there, it would be a steep downward slope into the perfect breeding ground for unfounded distrust of both each other and authority.

 

Shuuichi didn’t want to think about what would happen after that. He’d managed to avert it somewhat, and that was all he cared about. If they still didn’t believe him, they could go and ask Kaito himself.

 

He smirked. What a joke.

 

As if they’d be able to grow the courage to do that… and even if they somehow did, they’d get the same story, so it would all be fine. The matter was out of his hands by this point, the only thing that would calm everyone, including people back in Stoneca, would be some sort of official statement. 

 

Maybe there would be one if the rancor grew enough, and maybe there wouldn’t be. As long as nothing directly made things too difficult for him, he’d accept it. After today, he felt like he deserved a break.

 

A nice, long break.

 

He wondered if taking a nap would be a good idea, or if he’d just end up in something similar to what he’d woken up to the day before. He wasn’t a glutton for punishment, so maybe he’d read something instead. Or maybe he'd take a bath, read and then sleep. Cleanliness was important, after all... 

 

Apart from all of that, he felt as if he’d forgotten about something. Maybe he’d remember it later. For now, he was planning to make sure that he’d be out of the way of the tidal waves of confusion and unhappiness that would be going through everyone’s minds thanks to the news the Beta was going to deliver to them.

 

Being a recluse had its benefits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This... really has no excuse for not being out since last week. But I decided not to post it because - surprise, surprise - your local dumbass over here couldn't figure out what was going to happen in the chapter *after* this. I was able to resolve it, thankfully, and maybe one of these days I'll be able to get back to my proper upload schedule.
> 
> Sorry for the wait.


	35. Chapter 35

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The effects of stress.

**CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR**

Shuuichi wasn't sure how long that he'd slept for, but he knew that he hadn't managed to sleep for the remainder of the day. Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, he wasn't sure, but what he did know was that he wasn't prepared to do anything that entailed going outside of his room.  

 

And for once, it wasn't thanks to his extreme lack of courage. 

 

It was because of sheer, unadulterated exhaustion. Exhaustion mixed with a strange sensation that combined both resistance and unwillingness. He wasn’t sure what name it had, and he couldn’t pinpoint it. All he knew was that not only did he feel as if he had suddenly become sapped of energy, but he also didn’t even want to think of going outside his room. In an ideal world, he wouldn’t leave the safe haven of his blankets for another week, or maybe even a month.

 

But alas, he knew that doing that would probably just shift more negative attention onto himself. The news he’d delivered wasn’t exactly pleasant, and something negative coming from him wasn’t going to be encouraging. Holing up would just cause unnecessary attention to get thrown onto him, and that could breed around ten different controversies in and of itself by this point.

 

His family was known for backstabbing and misinformation, as well as a myriad of other crimes, so anything and everything he said would be metaphorically sent through an efficient system of scrying spells to identify if it was true or false on a  _ good  _ day. 

 

And this  _definitely_ wasn’t a good day.

 

And after his nap, he hadn't felt like reading. So he'd taken up the next best option when it came to wasting time: a bath.

 

So here he was, sitting in the bathtub with his eyes closed, enjoying the warm water and the calming scent of lemon, and hoping that no one from his province would take it into their heads to try and ransack his room while he was in it. 

 

If he was being honest with himself, everyone from his province had good reason to be suspicious of what he was saying. After all, he’d just lied to the Beta’s face, and he knew damn well that by doing so he was participating in what most people would correctly agree as misinformation. 

 

Misinformation which was meant for a good purpose, but was still out to deceive and possibly confuse people. 

 

Anyone who wasn’t a noble or royalty would probably be satisfied by some sort of public announcement, but nobility, in general, was well-known for being stubborn. Not only that, but there were commoners who were… shockingly persistent when it came to getting information about things that they weren’t supposed to even know or care about. It was possible to completely throw them off, but it would take a lot of effort. 

 

And in most other cases, he wouldn’t even care about this. Royalty had their ways, both legal and illegal, that they could use to manipulate the flow of information. However, there was a key factor that was making him feel uneasy.

 

The Enoshima Empire. Or, more specifically, its current monarch, Junko Enoshima herself.

 

She’d brought entire kingdoms to their knees, by manipulating the very royals who were in charge of the information channels that their kingdoms could access. They could open them and close them to varying degrees. In this particular case, they were trying to close them enough to make people give up on pursuing the fiasco that had erupted and managed to stump the nobility of a province which was closely tied to the less-than-legal sources of information.

 

One fact that was well-known was that just before getting overtaken by the Empire, the information channels in the affected kingdoms changed. “Changed” in the sense that they had either become strangely inactive or completely shut. They hadn’t done that instantaneously, but they’d done so gradually, before seemingly getting sealed as the kingdoms assimilated into the Empire.

 

Maybe he was reaching a bit here, but he felt as if that presented a unique problem. 

 

Perhaps this spoke more on his own mental state than that of others, but there might be a chance that someone would take this the wrong way and come to the conclusion that this could be some sort of precursor to some sort of large-scale takeover of the information streams by the Enoshima Empire.

 

And what would happen after that wouldn’t be something that people would take lightly. In fact, they would become alarmed en masse. And that could cause a stir that could be worse than the potential panic that could result from people finding out that the Enoshima Empire was once again trying to increase the number of its conquests.

 

And  _ that  _ would be occurring a few months after the leader had attempted to expand her harem. And failed. And thus attempted to obtain at least  _ some  _ of them after leaving them for a short amount of time, probably in an attempt to ensure that the spies had an easier time integrating into the staff before beginning the information transfer which would gradually have led to a mass kidnapping.

 

Shuuichi opened his eyes, feeling unsettled.

 

What Junko had done could be some sort of cover-up for something else, and that possibility was… far from palatable.   
  


However, this could be a ploy that was meant to instill paranoia which would cause some sort of breakdown in communications that could lead to her somehow being able to infiltrate the staff and thus carry out the entire kidnapping plot once again.

 

And as if all of that wasn’t bad enough, he had no idea if he was simply overthinking it or if there could be a chance that these far-fetched daydreams could actually have some merit, or if they were just a result of paranoia.

 

That was the main problem he had with Junko. Maybe she wasn’t some sort of infallible mastermind, but if a person thought hard enough about every single thing that her Empire had done within the past few months, their imagination would have a lot of material that it could use to run rampant. 

 

A notorious reputation didn’t stem from actions alone; rumors and fear also had their hand in it. The Enoshima Empire hadn’t only committed heinous acts, but thanks to their notoriety, there were several rumors circulating about it, and it wasn’t as if they could be verified. Absolutely none of them were good, and combined with the things that the Enoshima Empire had already done, it made its reputation… very  _ formidable _ . 

 

This entire situation wasn’t looking very good at all. There were plenty of conclusions that people could jump to if they either jumped to conclusions or overanalyzed things, and as far as Shuuichi knew, there was a fifty-fifty chance about whether everyone else would come to either of those conclusions.

 

Even that could be inaccurate because his mental processes couldn’t be compared to those of everyone else. So, in theory, people could come up with things that were either better or worse than what he’d manage to think of. Not to mention that everyone else had vastly different sources of information compared to him, and that wasn’t taking into account the other potential differences that everyone else had between their sources.

 

Shuuichi closed his eyes again, feeling slightly overwhelmed. He’d probably only managed to think up some sort of rudimentary framework of everything that was happening currently, but even that was far from pleasant to think about.

 

It might sound entitled to most people, but he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to handle this by himself, thoughtless of having to deal with other people who would handle and cope with all of this in different ways.

 

(That was also… not taking into account the negative relationship that he and the others had. Adding that into all of it would just open a can of worms that he wasn’t interested in unearthing anytime soon.)

 

Maybe he’d try and go to sleep right after this. The idea of staying awake and thinking more about this was something that wasn’t appealing in the least. As for eating anything, he knew he should, but that would involve going outside.

 

Whether by walking out the door or teleporting, he wasn’t interested in moving out away from the secure confines of his room. 

 

Besides, if things turned out well, he’d be able to coop himself inside his room for the most, if not the entire duration of this entire fiasco. Unless his stomach started audibly protesting, he wasn’t going to feed it. It was a matter of avoiding anything faintly resembling mob violence or a loud, disorganized argument. One that wouldn’t be able to attempt to hide under the veneer of “debate.”

 

It was the coward’s way out, but it wasn’t going to hurt him. That sort of stupidity was an Alpha trait, and as an Omega, he was so far away from that side of the spectrum that it was slightly amusing to think about it. 

 

He wondered how Kaito was doing. He couldn’t pinpoint anything exact, but he was going to assume that it was in the general realm of “bad.” No one would be doing well in this situation at all, but Kaito was definitely getting the short end of the stick in this mess.

 

No one was getting away from this situation without reaching a point where they just wanted to completely give up and stop thinking about it at this point, were they?

 

That was a question that Shuuichi wasn’t willing to answer.

 

…---...

 

Kaito felt as if he would break his communication orb if he had to sit through another meeting within the next half hour.

 

He’d just had four meetings back-to-back over the past six hours, and the last one was objectively the worst. Probably because it was a mixed bag that consisted of both the people who were actually being proactive about the situation and those who were too self-centered, too afraid or too disoriented to do anything that could really be considered productive.

 

He hoped that he wouldn’t have to interact with a human being again for at least the next hour, because he was barely holding onto his resolve to not bash his head against his desk. What he was currently doing was trying to avoid getting a headache by attempting to relax.

 

If the fact that he was still struggling to maintain an even breathing pattern was taken into account, as well as the fact that his irritation levels were still high, it was easy to come to the conclusion that not only was he  _ failing _ , but he was failing  _ miserably _ .

 

In spite of himself, he growled.

 

“Calm down, why don’t you?” a familiar voice said.

 

Kaito looked up sharply, and he saw that the door to his office was open. And not only was it open, but Kokichi was standing there.

 

“So, to what do I owe this surprise visit?” Kaito asked, not even bothering to attempt to mask his tone.

 

Kokichi was unimpressed. “You’re not the only one who’s stressed, you know. The thing is, the last thing anyone needs right now is you working yourself up into a rage. The people from the Kirigiri Kingdom are already causing enough chaos. The last thing this castle needs is for the crown prince to snap as well.” Kokichi’s scent wasn’t acrid, but it was teetering on the edge of just being sour and getting distressing. His scent of grapes and sugar was already strong enough, but when things like this happened…

 

...there were usually mixed results.

 

At the very least, he could be sure that they weren't going to end up fighting. He could tell that Kokichi didn't have the energy for that. 

 

Kaito sighed. “So, how bad is it? Has any external interference been needed to make sure they don’t disrupt anything?”

 

“Not yet, thankfully,” Kokichi said, walking inside and closing the door behind him. He made himself at home in one of the unoccupied chairs before he continued. “One of the main contentions is, naturally, Shuuichi. Apart from delivering the news, he doesn’t seem to be making any plans to come out of his room anytime soon. Apart from arguing about whether what they said is true, they’re debating over whether he’d try to pull another Sleeping Beauty on them.”

 

“Tch. At least they aren’t trying to start a riot yet…” Kaito’s vision drifted to the door for a bit before looking back to Kokichi. “How’s Kaede been handling all of this?”   
  


Kokichi sighed, and Kaito swore that he could hear the faintest trace of unhappiness in the Omega’s voice. “Almost as terribly as you.”

 

“Hey!”

 

“There's no need for you to yell, you know. I’m telling the truth for once.” Kokichi's tone turned from flat to testy for a split second, even as his expression remained flat.   
  


Kaito scoffed. “Oh, fantastic. Not only are you telling the truth, but you’re not hiding it under ten layers of riddles.” He leaned back in his chair. “If this was any other situation, I’d have followed that up with something sarcastic. You’re getting off lucky this time.”

 

Kokichi glared at him, before shaking his head. “That’s low-hanging fruit, and I’m not taking it. Besides, when I say that she’s taking things terribly, I mean it. Underneath her smiles and diplomatic veneer, she’s barely holding it together. I can tell that she wants to go home and make sure everything’s alright, but for obvious reasons, that would be a terrible idea.”   
  


“No kidding. Sayaka’s having a hard time keeping everything contained in the Musiqua Kingdom as it is. Between the nobles trying to pull all sorts of bullshit, the commoners are taking this in a complicated way. It’s not that they’re panicking or that they’re ready to wallow in despair, but the tension is noticeable.”

 

Kokichi looked thoughtful for a few seconds. “Mmm… all things considered, they’re taking things remarkably well. If it had happened somewhere around  _ here _ , not only would all of this have spread like wildfire, there would be several kingdoms going into an uproar near-simultaneously.”

 

Kaito groaned. “I’ve gone over that too many times today, please. Not only would the panic spread like wildfire, but there’s also a good chance that people either going to magically forget about security or they’re going to curl in on themselves sharply. Either way, there’s going to be fragmentation in communication that the Empire could use to get easy pickings on some of Junko’s… harem candidates.”

 

Kokichi's expression darkened , and Kaito couldn’t help but feel a mixture of mild shock and bemusement. To say that this was a touchy subject would be a considerable understatement in this case.

 

“Harem? That’s being generous. It's barely a harem at this point; it’s more like some sort of living collection that she happened to take interest in.” Almost in spite of his expression, Kokichi's tone remained flat. "How many people has she trapped in that nonsense? No one can ever get an exact number.”

 

“Probably because none of the spies they send out ever make it there," Kaito replied. "The accepted range is… something between twenty and forty. It’s been impossible to identify how many people she might have…  selected  after she overtook those kingdoms.”   
  


“ _ Selection _ ,” Kokichi repeated, his tone flipping form flat to sarcastic. “So that’s what we call it now, hmm? What happened to the word ‘kidnapping’? Or ‘abduction’, if you want to be pretentious? What happened to those words, I wonder.”   
  


Fantastic. Going over this topic right  _ now _ wouldn’t be the best decision, but it wasn’t as if he was going to be able to completely reroute the discussion. “Well,” Kaito bit out, “it’s the least  _ contentious  _ word that people can use to describe the situation, so it’s understandable why people don’t want to use it, don’t you think?”

 

Kokichi didn't seem to get the message. “That’s nonsense. The only reason why people use it is that they're so determined to stay oblivious. For some of them, instead of actually confronting the situation for what it is, they're scrambling for every precious little bit of padding that they can use to distance themselves from the situation. They're trying to formulate some sort of palatable, half-baked lie that they can use to deflect their unwarranted guilt. It's not like anyone has been able to pinpoint Junko's preferences so far."

 

"And what about the people who don't see the situation that way?" Kaito knew that going along with this would just land him deeper into this rabbit hole, but part of him wondered if Kokichi was actually giving him a choice.

 

"They’re too selfish to see things beyond their precious little bubble of delusion, and they want to force it onto others in the process.”

 

"That's strong language, you know. And pardon me for asking, but did you have anyone in mind while thinking that up?"

 

"Strong situations require the appropriate language, don't you agree? And I had multiple people in mind, thank you for asking."

 

Kaito wasn't the only one who'd been getting the short end of the stick when it came to today's meetings, apparently. "That's one way to look at everything," he said.

 

"As far as I'm concerned, it's the only way to look at it." Kokichi seemed unwavering in his position on the issue.

 

Kaito felt too tired to get into another argument. Maybe he could defuse this quickly... "I understand where you're coming from, but not many people think that way." 

 

"Diplomacy, hmm?" From the sharp turn of Kokichi's voice, Kaito knew that he'd made a mistake. "How well has that tactic been working for you today? Thinking back to the state you were in when I decided to drop by, I'll say that it wasn't doing you much good."

 

"Yes, and your method of being contrary must have worked out so _well_ for you, I'm _sure_." Kaito didn't bother trying to mince his words this time. 

 

Kokichi didn’t even seem fazed. “You really  _ are  _ barely managing to hold yourself together if your little charade fell apart that quickly. Normally, it would've taken a few hours to get you to admit you were exhausted.”

 

“Don’t talk as if you’re the best when it comes to composure, smartass. Just because it took less time for your mind games to work doesn't mean that you have an edge over me.” 

 

“I’ll just take that as a compliment.” 

 

“You’re welcome.” 

 

Kokichi didn’t reply. 

 

Even though he didn't reply, he didn't leave, and Kaito didn't ask him to. 

 

Kaito wasn't sure if it was because he and Kokichi had known each other for long enough or if it was because of their dynamics, but even though their friendship could be considered strained at times, they always seemed to be able to cancel each other out when it came to situations like this. They never got to the root of the problem, but they managed to stop each other from cracking too badly under pressure. It was a small mercy that rarely got the chance to show itself.

 

At the very least, it meant that he could have at least  _some_ peace today.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you figure out the point where I gradually came to realize that, yes, the chapter was writing itself and I was but a mere passenger getting dragged along for the ride?
> 
> In all seriousness, I'm just hoping that this came out well. Part of me felt that some part of this chapter were too pretentious, and the other part hoped that the tone wouldn't turn out to be confusing, especially in the second half of the chapter.


	36. Chapter 36

**CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE**

_ The spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak. _

 

That was Shuuichi’s only explanation for this.

 

After he’d taken that bath, he’d been able to fall asleep quickly, and for the first time in the past few days, his internal clock seemed to have its priorities in the correct order. He’d woken up at a time he could only assume was the middle of the night, and knew that he wasn’t going to be able to go to sleep for a while.

 

There went his grand plan of seeing if he might manage to sleep through all of the drama. Fortunately or unfortunately for him, he couldn’t summon up the willpower to set himself to sleep for another two days.

 

(It was possible that there were sleeping spells that could help him achieve that goal. The problem was that he didn’t know them. Not only that, but it would be suspicious if he suddenly started looking for a spellbook.)

 

(What a pity.)

 

He still didn’t feel the urge to leave his room, so to stall for time, he opened the curtains.

 

He didn’t feel like doing much with his powers, so he’d content himself with looking out through the window instead.

 

Seeing the moon and the stars in the sky was nice. And almost in contrast to the situation that was going on within the castle, the moon seemed to be growing larger.

 

He wasn’t the type to put much stock in anything, thoughtless of things like this, but he couldn’t help but feel a little relieved. At the very least,  _ something  _ seemed to be thriving in this situation, even though the people within the castle weren’t doing very well.

 

But it didn’t mean anything.

 

There were some fundamental parts of nature that even the most experienced mages wouldn’t dare to tamper with, and the phases of the moon was a part of those. All this really meant was that even though there was chaos brewing within the confines of the castle, that everything else was proceeding as it should be, completely unaffected by whatever humans might be doing.

 

The relief Shuuichi had felt evaporated almost as quickly as it had arrived.

 

Everything else was fine. It didn’t matter that there was a situation brewing that could completely turn the tides on the current social and political affairs of the South Region. Human beings were worrying themselves sick thanks to their own machinations.

 

He blinked. Even if everyone within this castle was somehow slaughtered overnight, tomorrow, the moon would still rise in the sky.

 

In the grand scheme of things… they weren’t very important, were they? 

 

No one in this castle could really be called important, apart from Kaito, Kokichi, and Kaede. One of them was straight-up royalty, and the other two were important in their own right. Important enough to be sent over here by the Royal Conference.

 

That wasn’t even taking into account whatever positions they held.

 

Ironically enough, he was one of the least important people here, apart from the servants. His family history was enough to make him near-universally disliked, and if Junko hadn’t taken an interest in having him as part of her…  _ harem _ , he wouldn’t be all that notable.

 

The only reason he could be ranked above the servants was because of his low-rank noble status, and compared to everyone else, he was at least a few rungs lower on the hierarchy ladder.

 

It was ironic that Misaki had taken an interest in him - she was notably higher on the ladder. Even Amano’s disdain of him could be viewed as laughable, since he was only slightly below Misaki.

 

The way nobility interacted with itself was…  _ special _ , to say the least. 

 

If his family didn’t have its infamous reputation, most of the people here would hardly know his name, thoughtless of having a well-informed opinion on him. 

 

And as if that wasn’t enough, he was pushed further into the spotlight by the fact that his parents had had… a very unique reaction to Junko’s proposition. From what Kaito had told him, they had seemed ready to wash their hands clean of him. If they hadn’t been stopped, they would have just given Junko permission to do whatever she wished with him.

 

Were they that eager to be rid of him? Was he that expendable?

 

Things were certainly shaping up to look like that.

 

He glanced at his door. Apart from the fact that they were probably still fighting amongst themselves, a reason why the others from his province weren’t trying to break into his room and scream at him was the fact that Kaito had… given him some measure of immunity.

 

It wasn’t as if Kaito was playing favorites or anything, but it was undeniable that Kaito treated him at least a little differently than everyone else.

 

…

 

Alright, maybe it wasn’t just  _ a little  _ differently. Personally informing him about this entire fiasco was just the start of it. Which other noble in this castle could say that they could waltz right into Kaito’s office without fear of repercussions.

 

If he didn’t know any better, he’d think that a good portion of this entire situation could easily have been devised by some sort of higher power. But what sort of higher power would choose him, of all the available people, to be the one that all of the attention was focused on?

 

A stupid one, that was for sure.

 

It was still undeniable that if things hadn’t played out the way they had that he’d either already be shipped off to become a part of Junko’s harem, or still be cooped up at home, doing nothing except getting nagged by his parents about how he should start focusing on getting married.

 

(Was he that much of a burden to them? It seemed as if they were trying to get him married off as quickly as possible…)

 

(He couldn’t really blame them - he didn’t have many exceptional qualities that would make it more ideal for them to keep him around. However, that meant that it was unlikely that someone else would take an interest in him, since he was so unremarkable.)

 

(Unless they had a history of being unpredictable, that is…)

 

Either way, he was inconsequential. Technically, most people in this situation were inconsequential, but it was easy to tell that in most other potential scenarios, he’d be one of the least important and thus most inconsequential people stuck in this mess.

 

And here he was, having a crisis on something he was probably realizing for the… third or fourth time? Was he really this stupid?

 

Apparently.

 

He looked at the moon again, and maybe it was just his mood, but he swore that the general atmosphere outside seemed to have changed form calming to mocking. The moon’s brightness and permanence had stopped making him feel safe and grounded, and they had started making him feel small. 

 

It was like he was a child all over again, realizing that it would be best to leave his parents alone because all he ever managed to do while he was with them was make them angry or just end up getting confused. 

 

(He realized that growing up hadn’t actually changed that fact. The only thing that had changed was  _ him. _ He’d stopped caring and simply let things happen, knowing that decisions were going to be made  _ for  _ him, and that he wouldn’t be able to disagree with them.)

 

(It took too much energy, both physical and mental, to even try disagreeing. What he  _ did  _ was try to drag the process out as much as possible, or eliminate the chance for something happening altogether by sealing himself in his room.)

 

(He really was a coward.)

 

He turned away, keeping his back to the window. It was a childish move, obviously, but it made him feel a bit better.

 

Just thinking about all of this had been tiring, and even at that, he wasn’t sure that he’d be able to go to sleep easily. He wasn’t in the mood for doing much related to magic right now either, even though that was the only thing he could do to expend energy without risking the wrath of a mob.

 

Most people might just suck it up and try and do something, but Shuuichi wasn’t one of those people. 

 

Instead, he gave up. 

 

He walked over to the bookshelf, selected a random book, and looked at the title. It wasn’t one he’d read before. In fact, he wasn’t sure if he ever saw the same book twice on this bookshelf whenever he looked through it. 

 

Was it just a regular shuffling spell, or was it something more… deliberate? 

 

Whatever it was, it was none of his business. This wasn’t his home, he didn’t need to start getting stressed over unnoticeable mechanisms of a place that he was just visiting. Extended, potentially peril-fraught visit or not, there were things that weren’t his business.

 

He looked up at the door. 

 

Predictably, it was shut. It wasn’t as if something would  _ happen _ , not now, at the very least. It would be common decency to at least keep the bullshit to the times when the sun was out. They couldn’t be so terrible as to turn a peaceful night into something else entirely…

 

...right?

 

_ Right _ ?

 

…

 

He… couldn’t answer that. 

 

And part of him didn’t want to.

 

Because even if he  _ was _ able to answer it, would it even matter? Even if he managed to somehow figure out if things could escalate or not, things had a high chance of being unpredictable. What had been going on for the past three days was a prime example of that.

 

How… unpleasant.

 

He shrugged. It wasn’t as if thinking over all of this would do him any good at this point. All he could do was hope that things wouldn’t end up spontaneously sparking into flames. He didn’t have the physical energy or willpower to withstand it.

 

For now, he’d just read the book he’d gotten until he felt tired enough to go to sleep. He hoped that it would be good. Even if it wasn’t good, he’d still make himself go through it. It could actually help him go to sleep faster if it ended up being better, so that was a potential advantage.

 

If it happened to be interesting, that could just as well be a bonus. It wasn’t as if he was planning on doing much tomorrow, so if he didn’t get an ideal amount of rest, it wasn’t going to cause anything terrible.

 

And even if it did, it _hopefully_ couldn’t compare to everything that had already happened.

 

(Hopefully.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *peeks out from behind a corner* Yes, I am still aware that this story exists. The problem is... me. No surprise there.
> 
> So, I wasn't in a good mood when I started it. I'm pretty sure that it shines through, even though I've probably overcompensated for it by trying to at least insert it in the story in a way that doesn't seem ridiculous. But, apart from my personal hangups, there were two other problems.
> 
> One: summer vacation has been screwing with my priorities. To put it into perspective, the reason the most recent chapter of my other currently-running story came out at around 6 pm my time instead of earlier was a combination of procrastination and me almost forgetting to write it.
> 
> Two: I wanted to make the chapter longer. For a while, I've tried to make all of the chapters in this story at least three-thousand or more words. Some of the chapters I've posted recently have fallen short of that, and this one is the worst offender. I apologize for this; it refused to get stretched out any longer. I hope that this isn't too disappointing of an update... the next one should be better. In both quality and length. 
> 
> tl;dr: Sorry for the lack of updates and how small this one is. I'll try and get better.


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